Detroit Pistons history: Re-drafting the 2011 NBA Draft

Detroit Pistons: 2011 NBA Draft pick #8

The Detroit Pistons were desperate to draft a point guard in 2011, but took Brandon Knight instead of Kemba Walker, who went 9th in this draft.

The Pistons were going with the guy who they thought had the higher ceiling even though Kemba had just dominated in college, winning the title with UCONN. It didn’t make sense then and makes even less now that we’ve seen how their careers turned out.

What made this even worse is that the Pistons compounded their error by eventually trading Knight and Khris Middleton to the Bucks for Brandon Jennings. This was not a good stretch of decision making for the Detroit Pistons.

But Kemba is off the board in our re-draft, so instead the Pistons will go with Tobias Harris, a guy who ended up in Detroit eventually anyway and had one of their best single seasons of the 2010 decade.

The Pistons didn’t really need a point guard that badly and were terrible at the forward position with an older Tayshaun Prince, Jonas Jerebko, Austin Daye, Charlie Villanueva and Jason Maxiell at the position.

None of those guys were the scorer that Harris became and he is still a key contributor on a title contender in Philly.

This draft had so many misses that it is hard to pick which one was worst, but the Detroit Pistons would surely do things differently if they could do it again.