Detroit Pistons: Jaden Ivey’s most important rookie battles

Detroit Pistons: Jaden Ivey’s biggest rookie battles

The Indiana Pacers and Bennedict Mathurin

• October 22nd
• March 11th
• March 13th
• April 7th

Like Shaedon Sharpe, Bennedict Mathurin is another guy the Detroit Pistons would have considered with the 5th pick if Ivey hadn’t been available.

The Pacers are a division rival and one of the Pistons’ old-school foes, so it won’t take much to kick this rivalry off again. The two teams play four times, including a back-to-back in March and a game in April that could help determine play-in (hopefully) or lottery (more likely) position for these two teams, so I expect these games to be heated.

The Sacramento Kings and Keegan Murray

• November 20th
• December 16th

Even though Murray and Ivey likely won’t spend much time defending each other, this is a matchup fans will be looking forward to for a lot of reasons.

Going into the draft, it was expected that Ivey would be off the board when the Pistons chose, and if that had been the case, they probably would have taken Murray, so these two are always going to be compared.

In addition, these two both played in the Big 10 and had some great battles last season when Purdue took on Iowa.

They both have ties to Detroit, and want to show that they were overlooked for the Big 3 that included Paolo Banchero, Jabari Smith and Chet Holmgren. Both Ivey and Murray think they should have been in the discussion for the number one pick.

There is also the battle of the fans online, as Pistons’ fans have been feuding with Kings’ trolls (yes they exist) which has added another layer of spice to these matchups.

Ivey made it clear that he didn’t want to play in Sacramento, so I am sure they will want to shut him down, while he’ll be trying to show that he should have been chosen higher.