Detroit Pistons: Do over of 2020 NBA Draft
With the No. 16 pick in the NBA Draft, the Detroit Pistons select:
Saddiq Bey
Wait a second! You might be thinking, Saddiq Bey is with the Detroit Pistons.
True, but Bey came to the Motor City at No. 19, after general manager Troy Weaver pulled off his second draft-day trade.
Bey almost literally fell in the Pistons lap at No. 19. Almost no mock draft had the 6-7 Villanova product falling that far. Most had him going in the mid- to early teens.
Bey has certainly proved the mockers correct and the professional NBA personnel people wrong.
He is also a lock for first team All-NBA Rookie team.
After a bit of a rough start (at first he shied away from taking anything but a three-pointer), Bey has turned into a dangerous scorer.
light. Related Story. Detroit Pistons: Saddiq Bey outplays LaMelo Ball in loss to Hornets
He still takes twice as many threes than twos but his shooting percentage of 45% on two-pointers makes him a threat to score anywhere on the floor. That was not the case at the beginning of the season.
He also is a great foul shooter (85.3%), so, as he learns the art of drawing fouls (i.e. flopping) in the future, he will be even more of a scoring threat.
Bey has been a record-setter from beyond the arc. With the increased distance on three-pointers from college to the pros, it usually takes rookies a period of adjustment, but not with Bey.
He is not only shooting 39% on three-pointers, but at a high volume. So high, he is setting records:
Most games with 5+ threes by a rookie in NBA history:
— StatMuse (@statmuse) May 4, 2021
11 — Saddiq Bey
9 — Steph Curry
9 — Allen Iverson pic.twitter.com/2XWEHxrCeo
When you are passing Steph Curry in the record books, that is saying something.
Being a Villanova player, Bey already was well-schooled in the fundamentals of the game.
He is not a great athlete (which is why, in the real world, he dropped to No. 19), but he rarely gets beat on defense.
Coach Dwane Casey trusts him enough to be the only rookie starting when they faced the No. 1 team in the East, the Philadelphia 76ers, near the end of the season.
Casey on Saddiq Bey's RoTY odds: "It makes me feel very good. He's deserving. The young man has made himself into one of the top 3-point shooters of the rookie class, defender, and he's just scratching the surface ... he's a coaches' dream."
— Offseason O (@omarisankofa) April 16, 2021
That is why the Pistons could not gamble that Bey would be available at No. 19, he needed to be taken at No. 16.