We don’t know the identity of the player the Pistons will draft with the 18th pick, but we do know several somebodies it won’t be.
It won’t be Ben Simmons and it won’t be Brandon Ingram. Lead-pipe locks. They’re going 1-2 or 2-1 to the 76ers and Lakers. But the list runs a lot deeper than that.
We started our draft preview series on Friday. Each weekday from now until the June 23 draft, we’ll look at two potential Pistons draftees – one candidate each day in the first round, one in the second.
When you’re picking 18th and 49th, there won’t be much of a gap – if any – between players who’ll be considered for 18 and those who’ll be considered for 49. In other words, the pool of players the Pistons will consider at 18 will be wide enough that it likely will bump up against an even wider pool of candidates that will be considered for the pick at 49.
If you were to list your top 60 draft candidates, it’s not outrageous to think that the guy you have listed at 30 might go 12 spots higher – or 19 spots lower. The draft is like a bell curve. Simmons and Ingram are at the far end of it and it’s usually pretty easy to identify those players. Get past them plus the next group of maybe eight players and you’re in the vast expanse of the graph. The guy one team ranks 18th might be a guy another team wouldn’t consider a first-round choice at all.
Based on what we know today – and with more than four weeks and the bulk of draft workouts still to come for most teams, plenty of movement is still likely – I’ve identified 11 players beyond Simmons and Ingram who are either certain or very likely to be unavailable with the 18th pick.
Of them, I’d say seven are all but locks to be taken ahead of 18: Dragan Bender, Kris Dunn, Jalen Brown, Jamal Murray, Buddy Hield, Jacob Poeltl and Henry Ellenson. I’ve got two more players, Deyonta Davis and Skal Labissiere, as nearly certain to be gone – even though Michigan State and Kentucky often finished close games with those high-ceiling freshmen glued to their benches.
As of today, I probably won’t bother profiling any of those players for our draft preview series. Maybe something happens between now and then to change that opinion. But that still leaves us six more players who’ll be drafted ahead of 18.
And that’s where Stan Van Gundy and his front office, led by general manager Jeff Bower and the assistant GM in charge of amateur scouting, Brian Wright, will be focused as June 23 nears.
That next wave of players – the group from which the next Pistons addition likely will come – includes two international wing players, Furkan Korkmaz and Timothe Luwawu; point guards Tyler Ulis, Wade Baldwin and Demetrius Jackson; Michigan State national player of the year winner Denzel Valentine plus two other college wings, Malik Beasley and Taurean Prince; college big men Domantas Sabonis and Damian Jones; and then a large group of international players, heavy on big men.
It wouldn’t be a shocker to see the Pistons draft a European player this time around and, further, a player they might prefer to spend another year playing internationally. The salary slot for the No. 18 pick is $1.42 million. If the Pistons don’t trade their first-round pick – something they’ve already shown a willingness to do as evidenced by the since-rescinded trade with Houston for Donatas Motiejunas – they might prefer the cap space and allowing the year of seasoning to spending $1.4 million on a rookie not ready to contribute.
On the most recent DraftExpress.com ranking of top prospects, nearly 50 percent of the 15 listed from 14 through 28 are international players: Korkmaz, Luwawu, Ivica Zubac, Ante Zizic, Zhou Qi, Juan Hernangomez and Petr Cornelie. All seven, and very likely at least four, could be available to the Pistons at 18.
It’s a complicated puzzle Van Gundy’s team will be evaluating over the next month-plus, while at the same time they’ll be putting their board of free-agent targets together as Bower continues the everlasting mission of trade exploration. They’ll need high levels of comfort with every prospect so they can gauge the value of each relative to what the 18th pick equates to in trade proposals or the incremental upgrade in free agency the draft pick’s salary slot would allow if sent elsewhere.
So it will be fun pulling off the layers to examine all of these potential Pistons over the next month, but don’t fall in love with the idea of any one of them actually pulling on their uniform. More so than ever, anything is possible this time around.