2013 NBA Draft Results: Detroit Pistons Live Draft Grade
By Ben Beecken
This is a mild surprise. The Detroit Pistons selected Kentavious Caldwell-Pope from Georgia, selecting his size over Lehigh’s C.J. McCollum and UCLA’s Shabazz Muhammad. He’s a fantastic shooter, he’s very long, and he should be a solid defender in the NBA.
He isn’t hugely athletic or a terribly good ball-handler, but he’s a dead-eye from long range, and it’s a solid selection for the Pistons. His fits with the Pistons imposing post players in Greg Monroe and Andre Drummond, and will play along Brandon Knight and Rodney Stuckey in Detroit.
This means that McCollum will likely go to Minnesota at #9, meaning the top point guards (Trey Burke and Michael Carter-Williams) will continue dropping to some of the point-guard-hungry teams in the late lottery and the teens. Shabazz Muhammad will also fall out of the top ten, and who knows how far he’ll slide.
There will be a number of trades coming up, probably including some of these point guards selected from #9 through #15, as many of these teams that don’t need point guards will simply select the best player available and work out the rest from there, picking up useful veteran players and picks along the way. It’s anyone’s guess at this point where all these point guards end up..