3 Detroit Pistons who need to improve after the hiatus
Sekou Doumbouya
The Pistons most recent first round draft selection and the youngest player in the entire league, Sekou Doumbouya has had a pretty rocky start to his NBA career.
After being thrown into the starting lineup during Detroit’s first west coast road trip of the season, Sekou blew fans away with his performances and started to make a name for himself.
After going up against Kawhi Leonard, LeBron James, and Draymond Green in his first three match ups, he was truly impressive defensively.
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Through his first 8 games as a starer, he averaged 14.0 points and 5.3 rebounds per game on 54.4 percent shooting, including 41.4 percent from three.
After this however, things began to go down hill.
If you ask most Pistons’ fans, it’s because he’s been relegate into a role where he’s either sent to the corner to stand and wait for the ball, or as a vessel to get the ball into someone else’s hands to initiate a play.
To an extent, they’re not wrong.
However whenever he actually is given an opportunity with the ball, he more often than not fails to capitalize on it.
Whenever he would attack the rim, he was often met by a defender and had his attempt blocked. Whenever he had a shot along the perimeter, he too often missed it completely.
Sometimes his body language on the floor was poor, leading some fans to speculate that his confidence was going down. He was recently sent down to the G-League for one game, and in all honesty that may be where he should stay if the season is to resume.
Fans will be quick to say “If the Pistons are losing they should be doing it with their young guys on the court!” To an extent that’s largely true, however when one of those aforementioned young guys currently has an underdeveloped game relative to the NBA’s standards, something has to change.
The G-League isn’t a death sentence. It’s a chance for Sekou to continue to diversify his overall game.
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Sekou is going to be a key part of the Pistons future, and we have to be patient with him until we get there.