When will the Detroit Pistons unleash Sekou Doumbouya, prospects?

The Detroit Pistons are struggling and health has been a big factor. With a depleted roster, when will Sekou Doumbouya and other prospects get to play?

One of the most important steps in learning is failure and the Detroit Pistons are afforded that opportunity with their younger players.

Sekou Doumbouya needs to be chief among them, even if its in short spurts at the end of games. The 19-year-old rookie was selected 15th overall in the 2019 NBA Draft and has played 24 minutes in seven games.

In those games he is 4 for 11, scoring nine points. He is 0-for-3 on 3-pointers and 1-for-3 at the free throw line. He’s grabbed four rebounds, has one steal and one turnover.

Monday’s 104-81 loss to the Utah Jazz was a prime opportunity for Doumbouya and two-way player Louis King to get extended minutes. They only played two minutes apiece with King taking the only shot between them.

Detroit only had 10 players, including Doumbouya, active for that game. King burned one of his 45 allotted days he can be active with the Pistons to become the 11th body.

In Sekou’s first six games he played in, the Pistons lost by 14, or more, or won by 30-plus. Only against the Boston Celtics did he play more than four minutes in those games. He played 9 minutes, 50 seconds and was 1 for 5.

One important area that Doumbouya, King, Jordan Bone and other young Pistons need to learn is the team’s offense. Too many times at the end of games, Doumbouya and King are thrown in and it becomes get-me-some time for one of the regulars. It seems that the offense stalls.

The Pistons need Doumbouya to become the budding star of this franchise but are wasting an important period for him to learn. He should be getting at least four minutes when games are out of hand, especially with the injury issues Detroit has had, instead of running Derrick Rose and Blake Griffin, when active, out there.

Let Doumbouya get much-needed experiential learning in the game, hard coaching from Dwane Casey and send him back to the G League with a plan on things to work on. It’s clear from a 10-minute spurt against the Celtics that Doumbouya isn’t ready to be a NBA rotational player, even. But its also clear the Pistons could benefit from exposing Doumbouya, who first picked up a basketball six years ago, to the level he needs to get to.

He will respond to it.

"“In my experience with young guys when I was in college,” Grand Rapids Drive coach Donnie Tyndall told The Athletic’s James L. Edwards III, “and in the G League when I was with (Jerry Stackhouse) the year we won the championship in Toronto, the guys who are receptive, the guys who will handle coaching and the guys who don’t feel like they’re above being coached, always seem to expedite the process. That’s how Sekou is.”"

In that November sit-down with The Athletic, Tyndall said Doumbouya needs to become better at rebounding. He’s grabbing 5.2 per game in the G League and 0.9 offensively. He explained how that could get him into the flow of his transition game, a strength.

King, a 20-year-old rookie out of Oregon, was once a five-star recruit but went undrafted after expecting to be picked anywhere from top-15 to top-40, he told The Athletic’s James L. Edwards III. But he chose to Detroit because of Casey’s track record of developing talent at the G League level. King has taken it to heart, using it as motivation to get better and, having only played nine minutes in the NBA, is using his NBA time as a learning experience to improve when he’s with Grand Rapids.

"“I’m starting to realize what I can do with my size and what the NBA expects of players with my height and length,” King told Edwards III. “I want to use that to my advantage. I want to show Coach Casey that I can impact both ends of the floor, not just score. I feel like I can absolutely be a great defender in the NBA.”"

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King has scored seven points on 3 of 7 with two rebounds, one assist and one steal in his nine minutes sprinkled across three games. He’s averaging 16.1 points, 5.4 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game in the G League with shooting splits of .443/.354.800.

Bone has played six minutes in three games and is 2 for 5 for four points. With the Pistons sitting at 12-22, no timetable for Reggie Jackson‘s return and Rose continuing to rest, his time will be coming if the Pistons begin to lose ground in the playoff chase.

The 6-foot-3 point guard is having a solid showing with the Drive, averaging 18.4 points, 7.5 assists and 3.9 rebounds per game with shooting splits of .459/.381/.771. He does turn it over 3.5 times per game.

Bone’s development at the University of Tennessee was impressive and he’s translating nicely with the Drive. He’s a player that can push the ball in transition, an emphasis of Tyndall’s at the G League level.

All three players are projectable on both ends of the court. King is 6-9 with a 7-foot wingspan and Doumbouya is 6-8. All three players could also use a greater dosage late in decided games to learn on the fly, take hard coaching from Casey and take a blueprint back to Grand Rapids to enhance their development.

Perhaps it’ll come later in the season if the Pistons are decisively out of the playoff hunt. Either way, it needs to come at some point.