Recruiting, the lifeblood of a successful college basketball program, has become instrumental in wooing NBA free agents, as well. Which goes a long way toward explaining how Jarvis Hayes wound up a Piston – he recruited the heck out of Joe Dumars.

The Pistons came out of their Las Vegas Summer League experience comfortable with a mélange of players behind Tayshaun Prince at small forward – rookies Arron Afflalo and Sammy Mejia with sturdy veteran Ronald Dupree the insurance card and spot minutes as needed for Rip Hamilton and Amir Johnson, perhaps.

But when Hayes instructed his agent, Mitch Butler, to make a pitch to the Pistons, Dumars and top aide John Hammond “got a little greedy,” as Hammond put it a few weeks back as they considered the luxury of adding a former lottery pick as a backup.

“It was a destination I told my agent I wanted to be,” Hayes said Monday after a sit-down with Dumars inside the Pistons’ Auburn Hills practice facility. “Once the initial phone call was made, it took off from there.”

Butler first made his client’s interest known to Dumars during their time in Las Vegas and the more the Pistons’ front office pondered the addition, the more it appealed to them. There’s the belief that Hayes’ career could be ready to blossom the way that several of his new teammates’ careers took off at similar stages after following similar paths.

Hayes arrives in Detroit after four years in the league. Chauncey Billups became a Piston after five star-crossed years, Rip Hamilton after spending three seasons in Washington, which drafted Hayes 10th in the same 2003 draft that saw the Pistons take Darko Milicic and Carlos Delfino. The career arcs of those and other Dumars reclamation projects weren’t lost on Hayes.

“That definitely was a selling factor for me,” Hayes said. “My first four years have been more about injury. I’m not injury prone, it was just one injury that, unfortunately, didn’t heal correctly until I had the surgery. But I’m past that now and ready to start over.”

Hayes had a promising rookie season with the Wizards, playing almost 30 minutes a game and averaging nearly 10 points and four rebounds. But his second and third seasons were sidetracked by a fractured right kneecap that limited him to a combined 75 games. He opted not to have surgery after the initial injury, eventually doing so 21 games into his third season when the injury recurred. Last year was spent feeling his way back as the leg regained strength and range of motion and Hayes regained confidence in his knee. He was just beginning to feel back to his old self when Washington’s season was waylaid by a series of injuries to stars Antawn Jamison, Caron Butler and Gilbert Arenas.

With those players hogging minutes at the perimeter spots where Hayes calls home – atop salary-cap issues and the drafting of shooting guard Nick Young – the Wizards decided they couldn’t justify paying Hayes the money they would have been obligated to pay him by making the qualifying offer for the fifth year on the contract he signed as a rookie, making Hayes a free agent.

The Pistons’ reputation for unselfishness and the chance to compete for a title immediately appealed to Hayes.

“It’s their style of play,” he said. “Everybody’s unselfish. No one cares who gets the credit. They’ve got a bunch of guys who love playing together and it shows.”

Hayes’ primary role will be to back up Prince, who averaged almost 37 minutes a game last season and clearly wore down during the playoffs. If the Pistons cut Prince’s minutes to closer to 30, that would leave about 18 minutes a night for Hayes at that spot with more minutes available in relief of Hamilton, perhaps.

“There’s a lot of ways to go with this lineup,” Hayes said, “and I’m ready to get started.”

The one-year contract Hayes signed is something of a double-edged sword. While it gives him little long-term security, it does allow for the chance to hit the free-agent market next summer with his reputation and market value restored. Yet Hayes goes out of his way to emphasize that appealing to future employers will not become a distraction.

“I feel I have something to prove, but it’s more than just me,” he said. “It’s about team first. If the team does well, everybody does well. It’s more than just the individual. Of course, I want to get my career back on track. But that’s second fiddle. I want to win first.”

Hayes has worn No. 24 throughout his career, but says he wouldn’t think of trying to convince Antonio McDyess to give up his number, especially since it didn’t bring him much in the way of good luck with Washington. With the Pistons, Hayes will wear No. 9 – as in nine lives.

“It’s a new phase,” he said. “A new beginning.”