The Detroit Pistons signed G-League player Todd Withers to an Exhibit 10 contract. Withers, a Division-II All American, will look to make the final roster.
Grand Rapids Drive forward Todd Withers joined the Detroit Pistons training camp roster on an Exhibit 10 contract, reported by Yahoo! Sports’ Keith Smith. The second-year player out of Queens University joins big men Donta Hall and Christian Wood in a battle for the last roster spot.
Withers, 23, spent last season in the Gatorade League for the Drive, appearing in 48 games and starting 36 of them. Across the board, he averaged 6.9 points per game on splits of .40/.31/.72 on 6 field goal attempts per game, to couple with 5.6 rebounds and 1.1 assists per game. Of those six shot attempts, 3.9, on average, were from beyond the arc. Withers has more range shooting the ball than the other aforementioned players.
A Division-II All-American in college, nearly two-thirds of his shot attempts came from the 3-point line, hitting a career mark of 38 percent in college.
At 6-foot-8, Wither would be slightly undersized to be utilized at the power forward and center positions but could be placed there in small-ball lineups as the league tends to move that way more frequently than in the past.
As for if Withers can make the final roster, I’d say his chances are slimmer than both Wood and Hall. Unlike Hall, Withers has had a chance in the G-League and for a player that seemingly specialized in 3-point shooting in college, you’d want to see more than a success rate of 31.7 percent.
Withers will likely find himself back in the G-League this season as he works on a few holes in his game. If he can return to form and knockdown 3-point shots at the clip he was making them in college, he could hear his name called up to a main NBA roster for some minutes. His time on the Las Vegas Summer League looked quite promising, in regard to his shooting.
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During the five Summer League games, Withers averaged 10 points and 3.6 rebounds per game. More impressively, he had shooting splits of .56/.56/.50. In the limited sample size, Withers took 30 shots, 25 of which came from long-range. He made 14-of-25 3-point attempts. People can say what they want about the Summer League as a means of analyzing players and competition, but Withers seemed to have found his groove that was missing in the G-League.
His shot blocking has also seen a decline since college. He averaged 1.3 blocks per game in college and 1.7 per game during his senior year. With the Drive, Withers had .8 blocks per game. However, as an overall defensive presence, Withers was in the top-15 of G-League players for defensive rating (of those that played at least 20 games in the league), with 99.1. Though, it would be nice to see the blocks creep closer to his college numbers.
Now, I’m still partial to Wood with who should get the final roster spot for the team. Wood has shown he’s an established player, posting solid numbers both in the G-League and in the NBA on the New Orleans Pelicans last season.
Withers’ game currently doesn’t generate the upside that Wood or Hall possess. It seems his key to making it to the next step is his outside scoring, strong in college, but underwhelming during his G-League stint (I feel like I’ve stressed his shooting enough to have made my point clear).
There might be a time in the future in which Todd Withers suits up in an NBA uniform, however, I don’t think that time will be at the opening of the 2019-20 season.