With Unforeseen Gains, Pistons Emerge From Draft As Clear-Cut Winners
By: Will Burchfield
@burchie_kid
Brian Wright, the Pistons assistant GM, wrapped up his interview session around 11:30 p.m. on Thursday night and excused himself from the swarm of reporters in The Palace press room. The NBA draft, as hectic an affair as we've seen in years, had just recently come to a close. Wright looked weary, but in a satisfied kind of way.
"I think you guys made out tonight," said one reporter, as Wright made his way for the door.
Wright glanced back and smiled.
"Yes. It was a good night for us."
There's no doubt about that. The Pistons, despite their unfavorable position on the draft board, emerged from Thursday night's chaos as one of the clear-cut winners. In Henry Ellenson and Michael Gbinije, they stole a pair of players they had only dreamed of obtaining, satisfying two team needs in the process. The draft took some unforeseen turns, and the Pistons followed them to fortune.
"I said to you guys the other day this draft would blow up the mock drafts and it certainly has for the most part," said Stan Van Gundy, after Detroit grabbed Ellenson 18th overall. "We were happy with the way it broke down, but surprised."
Later, after the team scooped up Gbinije with the 49th pick, Wright echoed that sentiment.
"It was a little surprising to a degree, but for us we're happy it worked out the way it did," he said.
Ellenson, a 6'11, 245-pound forward from Marquette, was all but a lock to be chosen in the lottery. Some experts – most of whom have had better nights at the track – pegged him as a top-ten pick; the Pistons had ranked him tenth on their final draft board.
"He was a guy we had as basically no chance to get to 18," said Van Gundy, the Pistons head coach and president of basketball operations.
But when their pick rolled around, there he was. Suddenly, after resigning themselves to picking for the future, the Pistons nabbed a player who just may help them in the present.
Ellenson is a power forward who transcends his position. He grew up playing point guard and his skill set reflects it. His shooting range extends well beyond the basket while his athleticism and ball-handling ability enable him to take defenders off the dribble. Most importantly, he gives the Pistons size at a position where they have been noticeably small, a fact that was hardly lost on Van Gundy.
"Look, one of the things we thought with our team is we need to get a little bigger up front, particularly at the four spot. Obviously we're big at center with Andre [Drummond] and Aron [Baynes] but our fours are all 6'8 or smaller. [Ellenson] can play the four and the five, we think. He really knows how to play basketball."
Ellenson admitted his anxiety grew as the draft pressed on. He never expected to be on the board so deep into the first round, but he feels it all worked out in his favor. Despite the hand-wringing wait, he wound up on a winning team whose roster is complementary of his skill set.
"I think I can fit in and be a stretch-four for them," Ellenson said. "I think Andre Drummond down low is really effective and I play [well] with centers. So I think I can be a guy who adds another side of versatility there, being able to make plays in the four spot."
Van Gundy was careful to keep expectations realistic for Ellenson, especially in the short term. But his excitement at having landed a player with instant-impact potential was unmistakable in his flickering voice and the smile he strained to repress.
"When you're picking at 18, 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 just his instincts, his ability to play with other people, his size."
As to why Ellenson fell so far based on projections, theories may vary. Van Gundy and Wright, for their part, declined to speculate. And in all likelihood, Ellenson's slip – if one can call it that – was simply a reflection of the fallibility of mock drafts. Either way, the Pistons are thrilled he fell into their lap.
"When [you] have a guy that high," Van Gundy said, referring to Ellenson's pre-draft ranking, "there's no doubt at 18 that you're making the right move. He's such a great fit for what we need."
The night would only get better from there.
In the second round, the Pistons watched another player stick to the board against their expectations. Perhaps it was his age – Gbinije is already 24. Perhaps it was his lack of a defined position – he is a guard, but neither a distributor nor scorer by nature. Or perhaps, once again, it was the result of an unpredictable process.
Whatever the reason, the Pistons eagerly plucked the 6'7 Syracuse product with the 49th overall pick.
"He was a guy we had kind of targeted and mapped out to go much higher in the draft as well," said Wright, "so to get him where we got him we thought it was too much value to pass up,"
Sound familiar?
Gbinije, like Ellenson, has the size and versatility to play more than one position. At 6'7, 200 lbs, he can be a guard or a wingman, and possesses the vision and shooting stroke to fill both roles with aplomb. He grew from an off-ball player to the team's point-man over a three-year career at Syracuse, sharpening a wide array of skills in the process. And in an evolving league, that's exactly what the Pistons like about him.
"He's a good player with a unique skill set and if you look at the way the games being played and if you watched the playoffs, there's guys playing multiple positions. You're switching, you're doing different things, and I think he brings that for us," said Wright.
For a team in need of a backup point guard, Gbinije may prove to be a savvy pick. Though not celebrated for his flair at the position as much as say, Kris Dunn, he developed a feel for it under the tutelage of Jim Boeheim.
"He basically turned me into a point guard," Gbinije said.
And like Ellenson, Gbinije already sees himself finding a role in the Pistons' offense.
"I think our offense was a lot of pick-and-roll, and the NBA obviously does a lot of pick-and-roll, and just me being at the point guard position, just basically running pick-and-roll almost every other way, I think that fits the offense pretty well," he said.
As for his age, the Pistons aren't concerned.
"Not at all," smiled Wright. "That's one of the old adages that when guys are seniors and they're 22, 23, 24 that they don't get better. But if you look historically, guys don't hit their prime until a little later in their career. He's played good basketball for a long time and we think he has a lot more good basketball to play."
Gbinije acknowledged the anomaly of his situation, but feels it presents certain advantages.
"I mean, there's pros to being 24. You learn more. You know more going into it, battle-tested. That's the bright side of it. Obviously you know it's a young man's draft, but I'm just looking forward to using my wisdom and experience," he said.
There is certainly a measure of truth to that. And Gbinije, though not a cut-and-dry point guard, has the potential to help the Pistons in just that capacity. The Pistons weren't necessarily looking for a player with experience or the ability to fill a positional void - it just so happened that they got one.
"We thought he was the best basketball player on the board at that point, and regardless of 19, 22, 24 [years old] we wanted to take the best basketball player for us and I think that's what we got," said Wright.
It was a fitting quote within the context of the Pistons' draft. The team entered the fray looking only for the best players, the players who could most realistically develop into steady contributors two or three years down the line. They weren't concerned with positional value or immediate potential.
The team stuck to that philosophy and came away with a pair of prospects who plug obvious holes, one of whom has a chance to make a legitimate impact in his rookie season. That the Pistons were able to parlay two low-leverage picks into core-fortifying pieces was an unexpected – and welcome – turn of events.
