Evan Mobley

Keith Langlois

It’s entirely possible Troy Weaver isn’t aware of every wacky trade rumor perpetuated over the last month – he’s been otherwise preoccupied, you should know – but of the ones that have come to his attention, here’s his assessment: “It’s all bunk.”

The Pistons, their general manager said Tuesday afternoon, remain open to all possibilities a little more than 48 hours ahead of Thursday night’s NBA draft – with all eyes on the Pistons with the No. 1 pick.

“I said it from the onset: We’re going to have a process and we’re going to turn over every stone,” Weaver said. “That’s what we’re doing. Everybody’s made the pick but us. But we’re going to continue to do our work, turn over every stone and land where we’re going to land. We’re confident in our work and we’re enjoying the process.”

Weaver said that if the Pistons keep the pick, he has not made a firm decision yet as to who’ll hear his name called when NBA commissioner Adam Silver puts the Pistons on the clock shortly after 8 p.m. It’s widely assumed that the first three picks, in some order, will be Cade Cunningham, Jalen Green and Evan Mobley with virtually every credible mock draft tabbing Cunningham, the Oklahoma State freshman, as the No. 1 pick – with most qualifying it by adding the possibility that it might not be the Pistons who ultimately make the selection.

But Weaver says there is zero credibility to anything reported about what the Pistons intend to do.

“I don’t really comment on rumors. I’m just stating, don’t believe anything you read. The rumor mill does nothing for us right now.”

There were pictures of Cunningham with Dwane Casey at Comerica Park last week to confirm his presence for a pre-draft visit and reports that Green and Mobley have followed suit. Weaver reiterated his sentiment from lottery night regarding the quality of the top of the draft.

“I don’t see Shaq or LeBron, but I see some high-level guys. We like all those guys at the top and we’ll continue to do our work. These guys are projecting to be very good players and we’re going to get a very good player to help us continue to restore the Pistons.”

The calculation for Weaver is more about what those players at the top of the draft can become more so than the impact they might make on day one.

“We’re going to make the selection based on restoring the Pistons and having longevity,” he said. “This is a long-term play. It’s not a get-it-right-at-the-moment play. Sustained success is what we’re looking for.”

When the Pistons won the draft lottery on June 22, Weaver said he was thrilled to land the No. 1 pick and added, “not everyone would be.” It was a reference to the inherent pressure to get it right with the top pick and running the risk of making an epic mistake that could be career-defining.

He reiterated his stance on Tuesday: “Getting the number one pick is a tremendous honor for the organization, a tremendous blessing. We get to pick first. But, no, I don’t see any added pressure in getting it right. Whether you’re batting cleanup or hitting first, you’ve got to hit the ball. We’re batting first and we’re going to hit the ball.”

The Pistons also hold three second-round picks at 37, 42 and 52 as a result of trades that sent Bruce Brown, Derrick Rose and Delon Wright elsewhere. It stands as unlikely the Pistons, after carrying five rookies on the roster last season, will have room for more than one or two on their 2021-22 roster. But they’re going to explore all options with those picks, too, Weaver assured.

“Just like the number one, we’re turning over every stone on those and try to maximize our value there,” he said. “Draft night is draft night. It’s just not the first-round pick. It’s just not the number one pick. It’s making sure we handle the second round properly, as well.”

all-options-still-on-the-table-for-pistons-troy-weaver-says-as-clock-ticks-on-nba-drafts-no-1-pick

All options still on the table for Pistons, Troy Weaver says as clock ticks on NBA draft’s No. 1 pick

Part of being the No. 1 pick is developing the confidence to make it beyond your belief that anyone else deserves to be the No. 1 pick.

“I wanted to meet with the team that had the number one pick because I feel like I’m the number one pick,” Cade Cunningham said after coming to Detroit to meet with Pistons coaches and executives last week. “If the (Houston) Rockets get the number one pick, then maybe I’ll meet with them if there’s enough time.”

Cunningham is almost universally expected to go No. 1 and that pick belongs to the Pistons after they won the NBA draft lottery five weeks ago, the first time in 14 tries since the lottery’s 1985 inception that the franchise moved up – and the first time the Pistons will draft No. 1 since they took Bob Lanier in 1970. But there are at least two other players, Jalen Green and Evan Mobley, who many consider in the same tier as Cunningham.

“I think I’ll be a generational player no one has really seen before,” Mobley said. “That’s what I’m aspiring to be. I’m just going to keep working and stay in the gym until I get there.”

There were reports the Pistons hosted Green for a weekend workout and others that they still have designs on working out and meeting with Mobley as the countdown to Thursday night’s draft continues. ESPN.com reported on Monday that the Pistons are having internal discussions about Cunningham, Green and Mobley and remain undecided about who they’ll take at No. 1. Other reports say several teams have made trade proposals to land the top pick.

The No. 1 pick has been traded only three times in the lottery era and only once since Chris Webber, the Michigan All-American, was traded by Orlando to Golden State in the 1993 draft held at The Palace of Auburn Hills for Penny Hardaway, the third pick, plus three future No. 1 picks.

There are several teams holding multiple future first-round picks that could attempt to pry the No. 1 pick away from the Pistons, including Houston at No. 2, Oklahoma City at No. 6 and New Orleans, though the Pelicans traded down from 10 to 17 with Memphis on Monday and now seems an even more unlikely trade partner.

Cunningham emerged as the favorite to become the top pick before his freshman season at Oklahoma State and solidified that status by becoming a 40 percent 3-point shooter to go along with the spectrum of his other abilities, including as a 6-foot-8 playmaker who finishes at the rim and projects as an above-average defender with a 7-foot-1 wingspan.

In another year, the gap between Cunningham and the field would eliminate all doubt about what the Pistons will do when NBA commissioner Adam Silver puts them on the clock shortly after 8 p.m. Thursday. But Green, Mobley and even Gonzaga’s Jalen Suggs are talented enough to cast some doubt on the outcome.

“I’ve been saying for a long time, we have one of the best classes in a long time,” Cunningham said. “I really appreciate the fact we’ve all been pushing each other throughout. I remember every camp we’ve been to. Any time I’ve seen those guys in AAU tournaments, anything, we always pushed each other. It was an unwritten rule, but we always make sure we guard each other to try to get the best out of each other.”

Mobley, a 7-footer with rare agility and skills for a player of that size, would seem immune from being played off the floor against smaller lineups as many big men in today’s NBA routinely are.

“I feel like in the modern-day NBA, as a big you have to be able to shoot, guard multiple positions as well as be able to stretch the floor, put the ball on the floor a little bit,” he said. “All those skill sets, I feel I’ve been refining them a little bit in this pre-draft process and a lot of the skills I feel I was pretty good at, as well.”

Green, too, has made it known he believes he merits going No. 1 overall.

“I just felt like I should be No. 1 because I work harder than a lot of the dudes in my class,” Green told Bleacher Report. “That’s the only reason. It’s not something that could have been or should have been. It’s just because I work harder.”

The ESPN report about the Pistons remaining undecided should be taken with a grain of salt. It’s standard procedure for NBA front offices to gather in the final 24 to 48 hours before the draft to set their final draft board. So the fact they hadn’t determined who was No. 1 on their board as of Monday could well be merely a reflection of the fact that Pistons general manager Troy Weaver and his cabinet have yet to have that meeting.

We’ll all find out what that meeting yielded Thursday evening.

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Cunningham, Mobley, Green all exude confidence to believe they should be Pistons pick at No. 1

The NBA off-season is basically the time between the end of the NBA Finals and the draft. This year, that amounts to nine days. The 2020-21 season ended with the Milwaukee Bucks basking in the limelight. The 2021-22 season opens with the Pistons standing squarely in the spotlight.

Things will happen fast with what remains of this summer, too, the off-season condensed by a month due to the delayed start to last season amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the desire by the NBA to get back to its traditional schedule for 2021-22 – meaning training camps will open in late September and the regular season starts Oct. 19.

But before that comes this week’s draft and on its heels free agency and the opening of a Summer League where the Pistons will be front and center on the marquee.

Here are the key dates and the things to look for with the Pistons over the next nine weeks leading to the start of training camp:

NBA DRAFT – The NBA draft will start at 8 p.m. Thursday with the first round airing on ABC and the second moving to ESPN. The draft itself will be held at Barclays Center in Brooklyn and the 20 players invited to the green room – almost certainly including whichever player the Pistons take at No. 1 – will be there, but the Pistons will conduct business from their team headquarters, the Pistons Performance Center.

There are four players widely considered possibilities for the No. 1 pick: college freshmen Cade Cunningham of Oklahoma State, Evan Mobley of Southern Cal and Jalen
Suggs of Gonzaga in addition to Jalen Green, who bypassed college to play for the G League Ignite. Cunningham is widely considered the top prospect but most concede the gap is narrow enough that anything is possible. And Pistons general manager Troy Weaver, predictably, hasn’t tipped his hand.

In addition to holding the No. 1 pick – a result of winning the lottery on June 22, the first time in 14 tries they’ve moved up in the lottery and the first time they’ve drafted first since 1970 when Hall of Famer Bob Lanier was the pick – the Pistons have three second-round picks at 37, 42 and 52. Don’t be surprised if they trade one or two of those picks, however. Roster space is at a premium and the Pistons, one year after carrying five rookies on their roster, are unlikely to add three or four more rookies this time around.

FREE AGENCY – Four days after the draft, free agency opens with teams allowed to negotiate with players at 6 p.m. August 2 and signings allowed at noon August 6 with the expiration of the moratorium period.

The Pistons are probably narrowly focused on a few needs in free agency. They won’t have significant cap space and, in fact, in part because of the cap hold of $10.05 million that comes with having the top overall pick, are likely to operate as a team over the cap. That means their best tools likely will be the mid-level exception, where the first-year salary for a new contract is estimated to start at $9.5 million, and the biannual exception with an estimated starting value of $3.7 million. Those numbers get firmed up during the moratorium period when exact figures for the salary cap, luxury tax and various cap exceptions are cemented.

Point guard, where last year’s rookies Killian Hayes and Saben Lee comprise the depth chart, looks to be the primary area to buttress by some means with free agency the most likely. A big man who offers inside-out versatility with the threat of a 3-point shot to complement Mason Plumlee and Isaiah Stewart would likely be the secondary pursuit. Opportunity might dictate those priorities get flipped based on the receptiveness of prospective free agents.

SUMMER LEAGUE – Again this season, all 30 NBA teams will participate in the Las Vegas event which runs August 8-17. This year, for the first time, the Pistons will train at their Pistons Performance Center – where virtually all of the young players from last season’s roster are spending their off-seasons – before embarking en masse for Las Vegas as opposed to past years where the far-flung Summer League roster members travels separately to Las Vegas for four or five days of practices prior to games.

The Pistons will have an unusually large number of players from their anticipated 2021-22 roster participating in Summer League due to the fact that they had five rookies plus 20-year-old Sekou Doumbouya, their No. 1 pick in 2019, on their roster last season. That means whoever becomes their No. 1 pick will be playing in Summer League alongside many of the players he’ll share the floor with during his rookie NBA season – a great way to hasten the familiarity learning curve.

And because the Pistons will have not only the No. 1 pick in their lineup but also the three first-round rookies who’ve already established name recognition – Killian Hayes, Isaiah Stewart and Saddiq Bey – you can expect them to be playing in prime TV slots when the Summer League schedule is released.

After Summer League, players will squeeze in a few weeks of rest and relaxation and then gather in Detroit for voluntary team workouts after Labor Day. The season will be right around the corner at that point.

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Off-season? What off-season? Pistons start NBA clock ticking on 2021-22 with No. 1 pick in Thursday’s draft

The Pistons have had more than three weeks now to digest the reality that they won the NBA draft lottery. Two weeks from tonight they’ll at last put their cards on the table. It stands to reason that they’re now deep into the process of evaluating the five players Troy Weaver said would stand as legitimate candidates to go No. 1 after the lottery results.

Not that there are any flies on the wall of the gleaming new Pistons Performance Center where Weaver and his inner circle are huddled, but if there were what might they know about the discussions taking place?

There is a case to be made for each of the consensus top five players to be the Pistons pick – and, perhaps, a case to be made against each of them. We’ve posted profiles of each of those players – Evan Mobley, Jalen Green, Jonathan Kuminga, Jalen Suggs and Cade Cunningham – though, as we’ve cautioned, those aren’t necessarily the five players Weaver had in mind for Pistons possibilities.

So let’s make the case for each one – and a case against each one for devil’s advocate purposes.

SHOULD BE THE No. 1 PICK BECAUSE … Playmakers have never been more valuable in an NBA where equilibrium has tilted toward offense and the Pistons need an infusion of playmaking to catch up to the field. And playmakers with elite size – Cunningham is 6-foot-8 with a 7-foot-1 wingpsan – are especially coveted. Combine that with potentially elite 3-point range – Cunningham hit 40 percent from the 3-point line at Oklahoma State on high volume despite marginal talent around him and invariably being the focal point of opposition defenses – and Cunningham adds up to the most complete offensive prospect in years. He’s also a responsible and disruptive defender who’ll better enable the switching defenses central to Dwane Casey’s blueprint at that end. Cunningham’s ability to serve as a primary facilitator will expand the lineup possibilities available to Casey and help ease the burden on Killian Hayes as an inexperienced point guard.

ON THE OTHER HAND … Cunningham is quite possibly the least athletic of the top five prospects and there’s a case to be made that the lack of high-end explosiveness will cap his playmaking effectiveness. Cunningham’s efficiency numbers at Oklahoma State required him to connect on an inordinate number of contested shots. There’s a school of thought that he’ll become even more devastating in the NBA surrounded by shooters and benefit from greater spacing, but doubters exist who wonder if the greater size, length and speed/quickness of NBA defenses will simply mean a greater percentage of Cunningham’s attempts will be of the contested variety in the NBA.

SHOULD BE THE No. 1 PICK BECAUSE … Nobody else in this draft class has the potential to lead the league in scoring and the only way to have a chance to field a truly title-worthy team – the ingredient necessary to win playoff games – is to have someone with the combination of athleticism and scoring chops that Green possesses in abundance. There’s a little more projection with Green as far as his ability to harness his offensive skill set, but you don’t have to squint very hard to see that it’s within his grasp. Green is also a very neat fit with last year’s three first-round rookies – Killian Hayes as the pass-first point guard, Saddiq Bey as the high-volume 3-point threat and Isaiah Stewart as the physical screen-setter, rebounder and interior presence.

ON THE OTHER HAND … Green had more turnovers (40) than free throws (35) in 15 G League games, which might be a red flag for a shooting guard who wasn’t his team’s primary ballhandler and whose athleticism logically should have resulted in opponents resorting to fouling him more than they did to prevent him from scoring at the rim. Maybe that doesn’t scare anyone away, but it does underscore the uncertainty of projecting teenagers based on relatively tiny sample sizes.

SHOULD BE THE No. 1 PICK BECAUSE … In a world where each of the consensus top five prospects max out, Kuminga is a good bet to appear in more All-Star games than anyone else. He’s got very similar measurables to Cade Cunningham but comes with an extra top gear or two. He’s also 13 months younger than Cunningham and there are a lot of teams that lean heavily into draft age when extrapolating future impact. Kuminga requires the most projection of the top five, but the potential outcome is a player who at age 25 generates the most value for his franchise.

ON THE OTHER HAND … Betting on Kuminga reaching his potential would be an easier call in a draft without the star quality apparent in prospects like Cunningham, Jalen Green, Jalen Suggs and Evan Mobley. And not that the presence of Sekou Doumbouya, a similar prospect with similar development challenges blocking his path to stardom, should be a disqualifier in consideration of Kumgina, but it’s perhaps a legitimate tiebreaker.

SHOULD BE THE No. 1 PICK BECAUSE … If it’s a question of the total package – offense, defense, athleticism, character, leadership traits – then Suggs is pretty hard to ignore. His two-sport dominance as a Minnesota prep, where he led both the football and basketball teams to state titles and was named both Mr. Basketball and Mr. Football, is a testament to Suggs’ winning DNA. In another age, maybe some would see overlap with Killian Hayes but in today’s NBA having the ability to pair two guards as adept at playing off the ball as on it – and with the size to facilitate the manipulation of matchups to their team’s advantage at either end – seems more an argument in favor than against.

ON THE OTHER HAND … The 3-point shot has become such a defining tool for players and the fact Suggs comes in as an average shooter – he hit 34 percent from the college line – diminishes the likelihood he’ll have enough offensive impact to warrant the top pick. There are also legitimate questions if Suggs has enough distributing instincts or vision to be a high-level point guard as much as a combo guard.

SHOULD BE THE No.1 PICK BECAUSE … If a 6-foot-8 playmaker is unique and invaluable, what does that make a 7-foot playmaker? Mobley’s ceiling is preposterously high as someone with elite shot-blocking and rim-protection potential combined with his ability to be a one-man fast break and serve as a pick-and-roll facilitator. The Pistons see Isaiah Stewart as a player who can pound opponents inside with his physicality but also step outside and hit shots when the matchup warrants as much. A fully realized Stewart next to a fully realized Mobley would be bonkers.

ON THE OTHER HAND … The 215 pounds is cause for concern – especially if there’s reasonable doubt about how much Mobley’s lean frame can accommodate even as he physically matures and benefits from NBA-level weight-training sophistication. Mobley’s ability to play on the perimeter is a wonderment for a 7-footer, but if he’s relegated to playing almost exclusively on the perimeter because a lack of strength forces him away from the paint then his ceiling is lowered by a few levels. Also warranting debate are the many stretches of Southern Cal games where Mobley seemed content to blend in rather than assert himself in step with his superior talent level.

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Making the Case: Debating the pros, cons of top prospects and their Detroit Pistons fit

(Editor’s note: The Pistons won the NBA draft lottery for the first time in franchise history last week and general manager Troy Weaver said there were five players who were legitimate candidates to be the top pick. Pistons.com today starts a five-part series looking at the consensus top-five prospects in the draft with an examination of Southern Cal freshman Evan Mobley.)

The last time the Pistons had the NBA’s No. 1 overall pick, they used it to draft a thoroughly unique big man. Bob Lanier had the heft of an NFL lineman but the feet of a ballet dancer, hands as soft as they were enormous. Had he come along a few generations later, he’d have been at the forefront of the stretch-five movement with his shooting touch.

Evan Mobley is every bit as unique as Lanier was a half-century ago when the Pistons took him No. 1 overall in 1970 despite the fact he was coming off a devastating knee injury suffered at the Final Four, though Mobley’s body type is about 180 degrees from Lanier’s.

That’s about the only thing close to a red flag on Mobley, who swept conference honors in the Pac-12 as a freshman and in many years would be the no-brainer overall first pick in the NBA draft. That first pick belongs to the Pistons this season and it’s a certainty that Mobley was one of the “five guys” Pistons general manager Troy Weaver had in mind when he talked about the number of players who would be under serious consideration with the top pick the Pistons won in last week’s NBA draft lottery.

ID CARD: 7-foot-0 center/forward, Southern Cal, 20 years old

DRAFT RANGE: Ranked 3rd by The Athletic, 2nd by ESPN.com, 3rd by Bleacher Report, 2nd by The Ringer, 2nd by SI.com

SCOUTS LOVE: There’s a lot to like about Mobley, an incredibly lithe 7-footer with the feet and hips of a guard and the ballhandling ability of a wing. Mobley’s ability to get the ball off the backboards and lead the fast break is a rare trait for a legitimate 7-footer. There’s a world in which whole offensive sets start with Mobley at the top of the key with the ball in his hands to play off the dribble – and if he gets to the point where he can do that efficiently, good luck matching up with him. Mobley didn’t play with an especially gifted group of teammates at Southern California so his assist numbers (2.4 per game) don’t accurately reflect his playmaking potential, but the glimpses of his vision and passing skills indicate he could be used in a broad playmaking role. Mobley didn’t shoot a ton of 3-pointers (40 in 33 college games, making 30 percent), but the tools are there to develop a reliable 3-point shot in short order. As a defender, Mobley projects to have an Anthony Davis-like impact with his wingspan and lateral agility. Mobley only took 10 shots a game for the Trojans to average his 16.4 points a game. In the faster-paced NBA game with more possessions and far more spacing, his scoring should come more easily. Like Davis, Mobley became the first player from a major conference to sweep his league’s Player of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year and Freshman of the Year awards since Davis did it for Kentucky in 2012.

SCOUTS WONDER: Mobley’s frame is about the only long-term concern on his profile. He was listed at 210 pounds and while natural physical maturity combined with a sophisticated NBA training regimen surely will help him gain functional strength, he’s a naturally slender player who’ll always be limited in his ability to withstand physicality. It’s not nearly the liability it might have been a generation ago, but it still matters. Look, Mobley is going to have a slew of physical advantages over 98 percent of his matchups, but he’s going to be challenged to be an average rebounder in the NBA at least early in his career until he makes incremental strength gains and learns how to compensate for what he’ll give away in that department. And while Mobley’s ballhandling and skills level is well advanced for a big man, it remains to be seen whether he can tie it all together well enough to be trusted to be something more than an occasional playmaker. If the 3-point shot doesn’t come around, his ceiling will be lowered a few floors. At Southern Cal, Mobley was head and shoulders the most talented player on a roster that also included his brother – Isaiah Mobley, 6-foot-10, is a borderline NBA prospect – but he seemed hesitant to assert himself more forcefully.

NUMBER TO NOTE: 10.2 – That’s how many rebounds Mobley averaged per 40 minutes – 8.7 per game – in college where his physical advantages were even more pronounced than they’ll be in the NBA and his strength limitations were less of a hindrance. It’s not a bad number, necessarily, but it’s far from the dominance one might expect from a player with elite athleticism, length and quickness.

MONEY QUOTE: “He’s more passive than I like from a top-three pick. He’s extraordinarily gifted. He’s a top-three pick because of those gifts. There’s just something there where I feel like he can take over every game at the college level and he doesn’t.” – An anonymous NBA assistant general manager as told to Sam Vecenie of The Athletic

BOTTOM LINE: Mobley’s rare physical gifts give him an elevated floor for what he can be in the NBA even if he doesn’t develop a strong 3-point threat or add enough strength to become more dominant near the rim. His rim protection (2.9 blocks per game) and lateral agility will make Mobley the rare big man who can’t be played off the floor when teams go small. He can pair with a more traditional big man if his team wants to gain a size advantage without sacrificing defensive integrity or versatility. The X factor for Mobley will be how skilled and efficient he can become as a ballhandler/playmaker as it could take years for the NBA to catch up to a 7-foot pick-and-roll operator. He’s a viable candidate to be the No. 1 overall pick and extremely unlikely to make it past No. 3.

Evan Mobley

All options still on the table for Pistons, Troy Weaver says as clock ticks on NBA draft’s No. 1 pick

Cunningham, Mobley, Green all exude confidence to believe they should be Pistons pick at No. 1

Off-season? What off-season? Pistons start NBA clock ticking on 2021-22 with No. 1 pick in Thursday’s draft

Making the Case: Debating the pros, cons of top prospects and their Detroit Pistons fit

51 years after taking Bob Lanier, could the Pistons go for another unique big man at No. 1?