ID CARD: 6-foot-7 shooting guard; Australian pro league; 19 years old
DRAFT RANGE: Ranked 22nd by DraftExpress.com; ranked 16th by ESPN.com; ranked second among shooting guards by NBA.com
SCOUTS LOVE: Deep shooting range, length and athleticism. If you’re going to build the prototype of the modern NBA shooting guard, that’s a great place to start. At 6-foot-7, Ferguson has the size and length to get his shot off unimpeded. Originally committed to Alabama and then to Arizona, Ferguson opted for a year as a pro in Australia rather than risk being idled by NCAA dithering over his eligibility after playing in high school at a basketball factory in Dallas with iffy accreditation. Even playing against grown men in a credible pro league, Ferguson flahsed the ability to knock down 3-point shots, settling for a final figure of 31 percent while playing about 15 minutes a game off the bench. Ferguson, by all accounts, also handled himself well in a professional environment, made doubly challenging by being a teenager playing on the other side of the world.
SCOUTS WONDER: For as explosively athletic as Ferguson can be when he can get out and run or drive unimpeded to the rim, right now he’s first and foremost a spot-up shooter limited by rudimentary ballhandling skills. He played the Australian season as an 18-year-old, so judging his unspectacular rebounding (3.1), assists (0.7) and free throw (0.7 attempts) per-game numbers requires much interpretation and a heavy dose of context to judge his NBA timeline. If your NBA destiny is spot-up shooter, that’s perfectly OK. Lots of players on very good teams have prominent roles as spot-up shooters. But if that’s your calling card, you’ve got to give teams reason to believe you’ll shoot them at close to the elite 40 percent level. Has Ferguson shown enough to make a team with a lottery pick believe he’ll grow to that level?
NUMBER TO NOTE: 184 – Ferguson’s weight. Again, his age requires projection here, but Ferguson has a slender frame. That’s not necessarily a red flag – who was more slender than Rip Hamilton, whose number the Pistons recently retired? – but teams will want some assurance that he can get enough done in the weight room to avoid being bullied defensively or too easily thrown off his spots offensively.
MONEY QUOTE: “I played professional basketball last year, so the speed of the game was pretty much the same (as the NBA). I’m pretty much used to it right now. But at the other end of the floor, I’m playing defense first and then my shot’s eventually going to fall.” – Terrance Ferguson on adjusting to the speed of the NBA game and how playing in Australia prepares him for that
PISTONS FIT: The Pistons want to add shooting and Ferguson has shown he could emerge, along with Malik Monk and Luke Kennard, as the premier perimeter shooters of this draft class. That, far and away, would be his appeal to Stan Van Gundy. So it all depends on how far away the Pistons feel Ferguson is from becoming an above-average – and eventually, perhaps, elite – NBA 3-point shooter.
BOTTOM LINE: The Pistons have plenty of options at shooting guard as it is, assuming Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is, indeed, retained in free agency. Adding Ferguson to the mix – to compete with Stanley Johnson, Darrun Hilliard and Michael Gbinije behind Caldwell-Pope – would make the position perhaps overcrowded. In essence, it’s likely Ferguson would be taking the roster spot and place on the depth chart currently held by Reggie Bullock. Like Caldwell-Pope, Bullock will be a restricted free agent in July and retaining both is unlikely given both roster construction and salary-cap considerations. Ferguson’s length and athleticism might give him a chance to guard all three perimeter positions eventually, though he’ll probably need at least a year of strength training to make that a realistic option.