(Editor’s note: The Pistons hold the No. 18 and No. 49 picks in the June 23 NBA draft. We’ll preview one candidate for each pick each Monday through Friday leading up to the draft. Players who are consensus lottery picks unavailable to the Pistons will not be profiled.)
First-Round Candidate: Furkan Korkmaz
ID CARD: 6-foot-7 shooting guard, Turkish national playing professionally in Turkey, 18 years old
DRAFT RANGE: Ranked 20th by DraftExpress.com; 14th by ESPN.com; fifth among shooting guards by NBA.com
SCOUTS LOVE: At only 18 and already possessing deep shooting range with good, if less than elite, athleticism, Korkmaz is something of a poor man’s Mario Hezonja, the No. 5 pick in last year’s draft, taken by Orlando. He shot better than 40 percent in each of his two seasons playing professionally for one of the top teams in the very competitive Turkish pro league.
SCOUTS WONDER: As much as it says about Korkmaz’s acknowledged ability to stick on an upper-end pro team in one of Europe’s most competitive leagues, the fact his play was limited to less than 10 minutes a game in each of his two seasons with Anadolu Efes also meant fairly limited exposure for scouts to fully gauge his game. There are some questions about his toughness – though that seems a harsh judgment based on his age and level of competition.
NUMBER TO NOTE: 0.53 – the percentage of Korkmaz’s shots taken from the 3-point arc in his 19 Euroleague and 35 Turkish league games combined. He made 42 percent of them in Euroleague play – the best of the best from across Europe’s national leagues – and 39 percent in Turkish league play. That underscores the consistency and effectiveness of Korkmaz as a perimeter shooter, but doesn’t answer whether he can become more than a specialist in the NBA.
MONEY QUOTE: “He’s very slim (175 pounds), skilled, a shooter. He can do a little with the ball, but he’s not really an attack guard. He’s more of a one-, two-dribble, pull-up guy. Good athlete but he’s not very strong or tough right now, so he doesn’t really like to play in traffic too much. I don’t know. People say he’s a lottery pick. I think he has lottery-type talent, but I have some questions about his toughness. The heart and stuff like that, I have to find out.”
PISTONS FIT: Given Korkmaz’s age and the makeup of their roster for next season – with four shooting guards under contract in addition to Stanley Johnson, who played more minutes behind Kentavious Caldwell-Pope by far than Jodie Meeks (injured for all but three games), Reggie Bullock or Darrun Hilliard – Korkmaz, should he be drafted by the Pistons with the 18th pick, would seem a prime candidate to spend one more season playing overseas.
BOTTOM LINE: A premier 3-point shooter with plus size for his position will always hold appeal to a Stan Van Gundy-coached roster. At 6-foot-7, by the time Korkmaz is physically ready to help an NBA team it’s conceivable he will offer multiposition versatility, as well. Korkmaz was believed to be holding out for a promise to be picked in the lottery before the June 13 deadline for withdrawing from the draft, but there’s no indication he’s been given that assurance. There now appears a better chance he’ll be available with the 18th pick than seemed the case a month ago. Another complicating factor for Korkmaz is his contract status, which is said to contain a buyout of perhaps $2 million. NBA teams are limited to contributing no more than $650,000 of that amount.
Second-Round Candidate: Kyle Wiltjer
ID CARD: 6-foot-10 power forward, Gonzaga senior, 23 years old
DRAFT RANGE: Ranked 75th by DraftExpress.com; 74th by ESPN.com; unranked at power forward by NBA.com
SCOUTS LOVE: Wiltjer’s calling card is easy to spot. He’s got a deadly 3-point stroke with the ability to release it quickly. He’s also an able and willing passer, which given his size becomes a major asset in allowing teams to facilitate better ball movement.
SCOUTS WONDER: Wiltjer’s low draft rating – it wouldn’t shock if he went undrafted – is due wholly to doubts about his physical limitations. He was a defensive liability even at Gonzaga despite his experience. His body fat measurement of 15.3 percent was the worst by more than 2 percentage points at this year’s NBA draft combine after five years in major-college weight-training programs.
NUMBER TO NOTE: 2011 – that was the year Wiltjer began his college career at Kentucky as part of the same draft class with Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. Each is now a four-year NBA veteran. That’s how long he’s been around. As much as NBA teams might be intrigued by Wiltjer’s outstanding 44 percent 3-point accuracy for Gonzaga last season, it will be hard for him to overcome the perceptions about his lack of athleticism.
MONEY QUOTE: “It only takes one team to impress to draft you, so at the end of the day if you’re not playing with desperation now, I don’t know what you’re doing. There’s a lot of money on the line and we’re doing what we love. You’ve just got to play with the desperation that you’re trying to make it. This is a tough league and to get into it, you have to show them what you do well.” – Wiltjer on the approach he’s taken to the 14 draft workouts he’d experienced after the most recent, for the Pistons, on Monday
PISTONS FIT: The Pistons are looking for a player much like Wiltjer, someone with prototypical power forward size who can knock down shots from the perimeter. Ideally, they’d want that player to also be a capable defender against more conventional power forwards as a complement to Tobias Harris, who at 6-foot-8 is often undersized against NBA starters. Wiltjer is fully aware of the fact that NBA teams are bringing him in for workouts to gauge what else he can do besides shoot, especially how he stacks up as a defender.
BOTTOM LINE: If Wiltjer doesn’t hear his name called on draft night, a distinct possibility, his cell phone will be blowing up with teams inviting him to join their Summer League teams. His proven NBA-level ability to knock down 3-point shots gives him an entrée to the league. Teams will be very curious to get him working with their coaching staffs for the summer to gauge if he can be brought up to speed sufficiently in other areas.