Detroit Pistons: G-League or Bench, what is best for Sekou Doumbouya?
Detroit Pistons: Sekou Doumbouya should start in the G-League
The biggest argument for starting Sekou Doumbouya in the G-League is his age and relative lack of experience.
Like I said, he is still only 20, so there will be plenty of guys coming out of this year’s draft who are already older than Doumbouya and have been playing high-level basketball for much longer.
If Doumbouya were in this draft, I don’t think he’d be a lottery pick, but he’d likely go in the top-20 again and would enter the league as a project player, which is still how we should view him.
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The Detroit Pistons will start Jerami Grant at power forward, Isaiah Stewart will play some there and Doumbouya will also be competing with Tyler Cook. This could leave Sekou as the odd man out again, so if he is not going to get consistent minutes off the bench, then he may as well go a place where he will.
Doumbouya should be able to dominate in the G-League and it would be a good test to see if he can, because if he can’t, he might not have a place on this roster.
Sending him there to start the season will let him get his reps without being under a constant microscope and having fans constantly questioning whether he should be getting more minutes or whether he is a “bust” every time he misses a few shots.
He can get his confidence up against lesser competition that is still NBA talent and allow him to work on his game without the pressure of worrying about being benched every time he has a bad game.