5 Things Pistons Fans Learned During the 2019-20 NBA Season (so far)
Who Sekou Doumbouya is
With the 15th pick in the 2019 NBA Draft, the Detroit Pistons selected Sekou Doumbouya from Orleans, France. I remember when I was sitting in the Harper Woods, MI Buffalo Wild Wings and the bar went crazy.
Pistons fans had hope, and were excited for the future, drafting a young athletic wing and finally taking a risk in the draft.
As the youngest player in the NBA currently, not many people expected Sekou to do much this season.
While his highlights on Youtube just seemed to be a series of dunks and layups against a bunch of French teams, offseason videos of him shooting efficiently had this website and Twitter enthralled and were dubbing Sekou the next Giannis or Siakam.
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Many people didn’t expect Sekou to even touch the court this season, let alone average 19.8 minutes per game, but as stated earlier, injuries forced his early NBA debut.
While Sekou played seven games in 2019, he only played 25 minutes, in 2020 he really started to play meaningful minutes against the Western Conference’s best forwards.
In his first three games as a starter, he was tasked with guarding some marquee names like Kawhi, Draymond Green, and the one and only LeBron James. Sekou was in double figures scoring in all three games and had a rebound-point double-double in two of those three games.
After that the Pistons traveled to Cleveland where the Pistons had the #1 Top Ten play for the first time in seemingly twenty years in which Sekou threw down a monster slam on Tristian Thompson.
Finally, in the Boston Garden the Celtics were stunned by the attack of Piston Twitter’s favorite two players Svi “Svisus” Mykhailiuk and Sekou.
Sekou exploded for a career high 24 points on 10-13 shooting (8-8 on 2 pointers), and many Pistons fans and even members of the national media were starting to say that he was one of the best picks in the 2019 Draft, but then something happened.
He began to suffer from remarkable struggles on both ends of the floor.
Whether it be a rookie slump, a change in his use/role, or the emergence of Wood, Sekou’s shooting and production fell off a cliff. In the 23 games after the Boston game, he only scored in double figures once.
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One of the major theories is that he was “banished” to the corner and was asked to be a spot up shooter, something he clearly is not. Adding on to that change in role, Casey made that strange quote about Sekou,
"“I’m very concerned with Sekou. I’m very concerned with the fact he’s a young kid, his outlook, his demeanor, he should be having the most fun of anybody! Have all the girls, and fun, and whatever you wanna do… enjoy life, play basketball, you play in the NBA.”"
Sekou, to me is a young Brandon Ingram. I know that seems to be an outlandish comparison as of now, but I would say that Doumbouya is a better defender than Ingram but not as good of a shooter.
Ingram had a similar career early on, getting drafted as a very young kid having swings and roundabouts in production.
Obviously he became an All-Star once he left the team he was drafted, I pray to God that doesn’t happen but if the next LeBron/AD duo came to the Pistons, it would ease the pain. Seriously though, don’t worry about Sekou Pistons fans, he’s still only 19, younger than half the guys in this draft!
What we learned is that he’s is a great defender, can take over a game, and is not a spot-up shooter.