Hamidou Diallo

Keith Langlois

The guy with a pretty compelling case as the Pistons best player over the past six weeks wasn’t in the rotation seven weeks ago. Explain that, Hamidou Diallo.

“Stay ready so you don’t got to get ready,” Diallo said after Monday’s loss to Boston when an emerging pattern held: The Pistons were a better team with Diallo on the floor than on the bench. “That’s been my mentality since I came in the league. Nothing’s been given to me. Everything’s been worked for.”

In seven of nine December games, including five straight, Diallo never left the Detroit bench. Kevin Knox’s 3-point proficiency earned him playing time that came at Diallo’s expense. In an era when a preponderance of players thrive or fail on the reliability of their 3-point shot, Diallo has forged a different path. He’s taken 18 3-point shots all season, zero in his last 13 games.

“I’m just doing what the team needs me to do,” Diallo said. “This is the role I’m playing right now. Who’s to know what I’m going to be playing in two days, three days. A month ago I wasn’t even playing. Just live in the moment and just take what the defense gives you out there. I don’t feel like anybody’s stopping me from getting to what I want to get to. I put in a lot of work on 3-point shooting and all of that and I’m still putting in the work every day.”

But because he’s right – nobody’s stopping him from getting to what he wants to get to: the rim – Diallo isn’t settling for 3-point heaves. Dwane Casey is fond of saying you can’t make enough twos in today’s NBA to keep up, but Diallo is putting that to the test. He’s shooting 68 percent since Jan. 1 and that puts him in the company of centers who are generally dunking lob passes or put-backs. Only four players in the league have shot a higher percentage during that time and none of them are 6-foot-5.

Again in Monday’s loss, Diallo ended up in the black. In a game the Pistons lost by 12, they were two points better than Boston during Diallo’s 17 minutes.

“They brought us a lot of energy,” Casey said of a bench unit for which Diallo has become a central figure. “I thought (Isaiah) Livers and Hami brought us back and got us within six or seven. It was their energy.”

That’s Diallo’s defining characteristic. Has been since he was a much-hyped New York recruit who spent one season at Kentucky. His ability to harness that energy into a force for good instead of a force for chaos has been the challenge for Diallo, but he’s been on point for nearly two months now. Since rejoining the rotation, Diallo owns the best net rating on the roster – the difference between the Pistons efficiency with Diallo on vs. off the court – at plus 2.9. In 19 minutes a game, Diallo has averaged 10.8 points, 4.1 rebounds and 1.4 steals while shooting 65.1 percent.

Through the ups and downs inevitable with a team as young as the Pistons – 10 players 24 or under on the roster and four key players 21 and younger even with Cade Cunningham missing all but a dozen games – Diallo has been a rock of reliability since his reinstatement.

“I feel like I’m a plug-and-fit guy on any team,” he said. “With any group of guys, I just feel like I can adapt to any different needs. Do I look at it as a skill set? No, I just look at it as who I am. People say you’re a good person. When you’re a good person, you understand different situations you’re in.”

About that last part. Yeah, the Pistons love the fiber of Diallo. When Killian Hayes was asked about Diallo’s impact over the past several weeks, he both began and ended his response with a testament to Diallo’s character.

“He’s just a great teammate. Always bringing joy, playing with a free mind. He’s going to play hard. He brings 100 percent. He’s a great slasher, runs the floor all the time. But most of all, he’s a great teammate.”

“Not even teammate, I take pride in being a great person,” Diallo said. “Because this game is only played for so long. I was raised to not take anything for granted and to understand when you’re in a situation and how to thrive in that situation. I look at everybody in the locker room, I look at everybody as brothers first and basketball will take care of itself. This is just a small part of our life.”

If he keeps playing it the way he’s played it for the past six weeks, it’s going to be a part of his life well into his future.

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In season of ups and downs, Diallo a Pistons rock of reliability

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Three quick observations from Sunday night’s 144-109 loss to the San Antonio Spurs at AT&T Center

THINNED OUT – The Pistons found out what their breaking point was for losing players and making lineups up on the fly. With their list of unavailable players growing to 11 – eight of them due to NBA health and safety protocols related to COVID-19 – with the additions of Trey Lyles, Cory Joseph and Josh Jackson on Sunday, the Pistons played San Antonio tough for a quarter before the roof caved. The Spurs outscored them 40-24 during a second quarter in which the Pistons shot 6 of 24 and at one point leading by 30 points. The Spurs had 119 points after three quarters and led by 39. The Pistons pushed Miami to the buzzer in their previous game when they were without four preferred starters among seven total absences. But Joseph and Lyles combined for 49 points and gave the Pistons two players with plenty of NBA experience. On Sunday – with Dwane Casey missing due to personal reasons again and three other assist coaches also sidelined by COVID-19 protocols along with one of the three NBA referees assigned to the game – they needed four players signed to 10-day contracts over the past few days to flesh out the roster. Isaiah Stewart, Killian Hayes, Cade Cunningham, Rodney McGruder and Saben Lee were the other Pistons missing due to health and safety protocols while Jerami Grant and Kelly Olynyk remain out with injuries. Hamidou Diallo led the Pistons with 28 points.

THE NEW GUYS – All four of the players signed to emergency 10-day contracts recently allowed by the NBA to restock COVID-depleted rosters played before the first quarter ended. The four – Derrick Walton Jr., Cheick Diallo, Cassius Stanley and Deividas Sirvydis – have spent the 2021-22 season with the Motor City Cruise of the G League.

Walton drew the start as the only player on the roster who qualifies as a point guard. Walton, undrafted out of Michigan in 2017, had 42 games of NBA experience on his resume with Miami, the Los Angeles Clippers and the Detroit, for which he played three games in 2019-20. Walton, a Detroit native, went scoreless in 31 minutes, missing five shots, but registered six assists. Cheick Diallo, who made his Pistons debut in Thursday’s game at Miami, was called on early and often as starting center Luka Garza, who scored a season-high 20 points in 20 minutes, dodged foul trouble for much of the game and fouled out early in the fourth quarter. Diallo also fouled out, finishing with nine points and nine rebounds in 19 minutes. Cassius Stanley, the 54th&nbsp;pick of the 2020 draft after one season at Duke, played 24 games for Indiana as a rookie. He came to training camp with the Pistons and signed with the Cruise. He finished with nine points, three rebounds and two assists in 20 minutes. Sirvydis was the 38th&nbsp;pick of the 2019 draft by the Pistons. He spent the 2019-20 season playing in Europe and came to the Pistons last season but was waived before training camp this season. He scored three points on 1 of 8 shooting.

STILL STANDING – Saddiq Bey started his 78th&nbsp;consecutive game at San Antonio, the NBA’s fifth-longest active streak and all the more amazing given that Bey is the only one of the Pistons preferred starters who was in uniform. After a sometimes-rocky first third of the season, Bey has turned it around over the past few weeks. Before going for 23 points and eight rebounds on Sunday, Bey had averaged 23.0 points, 7.0 rebounds and 3.6 assists on 38 percent 3-point shooting and 47 percent overall shooting over his previous five games. That compares to 11.9 points, 5.8 rebounds and 2.3 assists on 30 and 35 percent splits over his first 26 games. Bey has continued to show more diversity in his scoring than he exhibited as a rookie, when two-thirds of his shots were 3-point attempts. Bey didn’t have a great night from the field, hitting 5 of 16 shots and 1 of 6 from three, but found a way to score by getting to the foul line and converting 12 of 14.

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Further depleted, Pistons run out of gas at San Antonio

Three quick observations from Thursday night’s 115-112 loss to the Miami Heat at FTX Arena

FULL OF FIGHT – The Pistons have dodged the pervasive COVID-19 bug all season, but it caught up to them with a vengeance on the eve of Christmas eve at Miami when starters Cade Cunningham, Killian Hayes and Isaiah Stewart joined Saben Lee and Rodney McGruder in health and safety protocols – that on top of already missing Jerami Grant and Kelly Olynyk. Despite all of that, the Pistons opened a 14-point lead late in the first half and still led by five with under three minutes to play. But the Heat got huge triples in the final 75 seconds from Tyler Herro and Max Strus, the latter to lead by three with 40 seconds to play. The Pistons made a season-high 18 3-point shots (in 40 tries), but needed a 19th&nbsp;to force overtime. Cory Joseph’s contested triple from the corner didn’t fall, though, and Miami hung on. Missing seven players was one thing, but the lack of depth was especially glaring at point guard and in the middle. Joseph was the only available player with any appreciable experience as a primary ballhandler and rookie Luka Garza was the only true center in uniform. With heavy minutes needed, all five Pistons starters – Joseph, Saddiq Bey, Hamidou Diallo, Trey Lyles and Frank Jackson – hit double figures in scoring just past the midway point of the third quarter. All five starters registered season highs in minutes played. Lyles finished with a career-best 28&nbsp; points. Joseph hit a career-high five 3-pointers on his way to 21 points to go with nine assists. Miami was also shorthanded, missing starters Bam Adebayo, Jimmy Butler and P.J. Tucker and losing center Dewayne Dedmon in the first quarter with a knee injury. Herro had 29 off the bench for Miami and Strus added 26.

SHOCK TROOPS – Since Cade Cunningham was reported to have entered NBA health and safety protocols on Wednesday, the Pistons had time to react to his absence by signing a replacement player to a 10-day contract as recently made possible by the NBA. Look for more emergency fill-in players to be added if the Pistons are still caught short for their next game, Sunday at San Antonio. Cheikh Diallo got the call fresh off his outstanding stint with the Motor City Cruise at the recent G League Showcase to fill Cunningham’s spot and he got on the floor late in the first quarter and played three minutes, making his only shot and registering a steal. Diallo averaged 23.5 points, 16.0 rebounds and two blocks while shooting 67 percent at the Showcase event in Las Vegas. Diallo, the 33rd&nbsp;pick in the 2016 draft, arrives with 180 games of NBA experience over four seasons, the first three with New Orleans and 2019-20 with Phoenix. He didn’t play in the NBA last season, but averaged 14.2 points and 8.5 rebounds a game with the Cruise in 13 G League games with four starts. Diallo, 6-foot-8, has a 7-foot-4½ wingspan and good lateral mobility. He’s limited offensively – Diallo, 25, has shot seven 3-point attempts in more than 2,000 NBA career minutes – but is effective around the rim and a plus defender.

STAY READY – With Isaiah Livers also ruled out before tipoff by the Pistons medical staff as he continues his return from a foot injury, the bench consisted of Josh Jackson, Luka Garza, Cheikh Diallo and Jamorko Pickett. With no obvious candidate to take over as point guard when Cory Joseph needed to sit, interim coach Rex Kalamian, filling in for Dwane Casey who missed the game for personal reasons unrelated to COVID-19, used Hamidou Diallo for the six minutes when Joseph rested. As Kalamian said after learning just as the Pistons were about to depart their team hotel about the wave of players no longer available, “I’m going to try to stay away from who are the one, two, three, four, five – we’re just going to put five players on the floor. We know our offense. Coach Casey, one thing he likes to do is make sure different guys player in different spots in practice, so every guy plays every position. We’ve been preparing for days like this.”

Hamidou Diallo

In season of ups and downs, Diallo a Pistons rock of reliability

Further depleted, Pistons run out of gas at San Antonio

Ravaged Pistons battle Heat to the buzzer