Pistons Find A First-Round Steal In Henry Ellenson
By Will Burchfield
It was as if the Pistons couldn't believe their eyes.
Henry Ellenson was the number-ten ranked player on their draft board. He was a lock to go in the lottery, with some suggesting he could be taken as high as sixth overall. The team had such little hope in landing him with the 18th pick, in fact, that they hadn't even invited him in for a pre-draft workout.
Because why would they?
And yet when the Pistons looked up at the draft board after the first 17 picks had been made, there was Ellenson's name beckoning in lights. It didn't take long for them to make their decision.
"We were really surprised," said a visibly excited Stan Van Gundy afterward. "He was a guy we had as basically no chance to get to 18…Everybody though he was going to go higher so it was pretty surprising to us that he was still there, and we're really, really happy."
"I have great faith in our [scouting] staff," Van Gundy added later. "When they have a guy that high, there's no doubt at 18 that you're making the right move."
A freshman out of Marquette, Ellenson brings a diverse skill set to the basketball court. At 6'11, 245 lbs, his most noticeable attribute is his size, but he possesses the ball-handling skills and passing ability to take challenge defenders off the dribble. His mid-range jump shot is already a weapon and he has shown flashes of a three-point stroke, as well.
"We think he really knows how to play basketball," said Van Gundy, the Pistons head coach and president of basketball operations. "Great instincts, he can handle the ball for a big, really faces up, shoots it, puts it on the floor, can pass the ball, tough guy, rebounds it – almost 10 a game [at Marquette] – so he gives us lot of things to work with. We're really excited. I mean, it just unfolded a lot differently that we thought it would."
Van Gundy had stressed in his pre-draft press conference that the team was not expecting to land an immediate-impact player. And though he was careful to measure his short-term expectations for Ellenson, he admitted the power forward just may prove him wrong.
"I don't expect him to come in and play 20 minutes a game right now, but we do think it's possible he could get on the floor because, again, he was a guy well above us and his instincts, his ability to play with other people, his size. We said going into it these are picks where we knew guys would need to develop…but I do think he's got a chance to come a little bit quicker than some of the other guys we looked at. So we're excited to get started with him," Van Gundy said.
Van Gundy had also made it clear that the Pistons would take the best player available to them, the player who they felt had the best chance to be a consistent contributor inside his rookie contact. They would not pick a player to satisfy a positional need. The Pistons stuck to that philosophy and fulfilled one anyway.
"He's such a great fit for what we need. We've got a lot of wing guys…but we don't have a big power forward on our roster. So it's a bonus that he's a fit the way he is," Van Gundy said.
In his one and only season in college, Ellenson was the go-to player on a mediocre Marquette team. He averaged 17 points and 9.7 rebounds per game, and was named the unanimous Big East Rookie of the Year.
"He had to play a huge role. You're talking about a freshman in a major conference averaging 17 points and almost 10 boards. That's really, really hard to do as a freshman, there's only a handful of guys that do that, so that's great production," said Van Gundy.
Though Ellenson has the size to play as a back-to-the rim center, the Pistons envision him as more of a complement to the bruising, down-low presence of Andre Drummond.
"For a big guy, he can face up and put it on the floor and make passes off the dribble and score," said Van Gundy. "That's really what he is: a face-up guy. He's got a little bit in the low post but even his post game is more catch, face, shoot, put it on the floor. He's really skilled in that way."
Reflecting on the first 18 picks of the draft, Van Gundy emphasized the unpredictability of things as the night pressed on. The Pistons, for their part, watched two players who they had ranked in the 30's disappear within the first 13 picks. And that's likely how it was for most teams, Van Gundy suggested.
"I think people predicted going in that after the first eight picks it was going to get crazy," he said. "I said to you the other day this draft would blow up the mocks drafts and it certainly has for the most part."
Indeed. And that undoubtedly worked in the Pistons' advantage.