Pistons news: Ex-Detroit players morphing into Stephen Curry

Since Troy Weaver took over as GM of the Detroit Pistons, they have had as much roster churn as anyone in the league.

He quickly got rid of all of the young players he didn’t draft, sold off one asset for a draft pick that became Saddiq Bey and traded away both Jerami Grant and Kelly Olynyk to eventually add Jalen Duren and Bojan Bogdanovic.

In a vacuum, all of these moves were defensible at the time and still are, as the Pistons are a rebuilding team and those players either didn’t fit Troy Weaver’s vision or didn’t fit the timeline of the current roster.

But the Detroit Pistons have to be looking around the league right now and wondering if there is something wrong with the rims in the Motor City, because just about every guy they have moved has ended up morphing into one of the league’s best 3-point shooters.

Detroit Pistons: Ex-players are now some of the best shooters in the league

If you look at the top 3-point shooters in the league (by percentage), there are currently three players who used to play for the Detroit Pistons in the top-10.

I don’t know if it is scheme or just the fact that they are all on better teams, but every one of these guys suddenly turned into Stephen Curry when they got outside the Detroit city limits.

Bruce Brown
Brown is having his best season as a professional for the Denver Nuggets, averaging 11.2 points, 4.5 rebounds and 4.5 assists, while playing 30 minutes per night on one of the Western Conference’s best teams.

He’s also shooting 39.7 percent from 3-point range and shot 40 percent last season. Brown didn’t shoot many of them in Detroit and never looked like a guy who would hit a high percentage, though he did improve to 34 percent in his last season with the Pistons. Bruce Brown is currently 45th in the league in 3-point percentage overall.

Luke Kennard

Kennard was already a very good 3-point shooter when he was in Detroit, but since leaving, he has led the league in 3-point shooting once and is 2nd in the league so far this season, shooting an eye-popping 49 percent from long range.

He still can’t defend and one scores 7.8 points per game for the Clippers, but he has evolved into arguably the league’s best pure 3-point shooter.

Kelly Olynyk

Olynyk’s time with the Pistons was marred by injuries, as he only played 40 games for Detroit last season and shot 33.6 percent from 3-point range, the worst of his career. This season he is one of the big reasons Utah is the surprise team in the West with a 14-12 record and currently sitting in the 8th seed in a loaded conference.

Olynyk is shooting the same number of attempts that he did in Detroit, but hitting 46.6 percent of them, good for 5th overall in the NBA.

Jerami Grant

We all knew Jerami Grant was a very good player and there was lengthy debate about whether the Detroit Pistons should have kept him around. There is even more now that he has blown up even more on Portland, averaging 23 points, 4.1 rebounds and 2.8 assists while shooting 46.1 percent from 3-point range, which is 10th in the NBA overall. Grant never shot more than 35 percent in his time in Detroit.

Did I say these guys were like Steph Curry? Because all of them but Brown are currently ahead of Curry in percentage, though he obviously shoots away more of them.

Grant is firing 6.1 long-range attempts per game, highest of his career and has to be in the running for the All-Star game the way he is playing. Like the Jazz, the Trail Blazers have surprised people this season and are currently the 7th seed and Grant has a lot to do with it.

So why is this happening? The easy answer is that all of these players went to better teams where they aren’t asked to do as much. They are much more efficient in their roles and have stars around them, so it makes sense.

I thought all of these guys would thrive, but the fact that three of them are shooting nearly 50 percent from 3-point range is a surprise. Again, these moves weren’t bad ones in a vacuum, and all of these players showed flashes in the past, but it’s tough for the 20th ranked 3-point shooting team in the league to watch these guys morph into some of the league’s top shooters after leaving Detroit.