It will take time for us to know if the James Wiseman for Saddiq Bey trade worked out for the Detroit Pistons.
Troy Weaver decided to take a flyer on a player who he perceives to have a higher ceiling in Wiseman, and we’ve seen glimpses of it so far, as he has averaged 12.7 points and 8.4 rebounds in his 10 games with Detroit.
The lineups with two bigs have been a disaster so far, but Wiseman has shown some promise with Jaden Ivey and could eventually be the dynamic big man Troy Weaver says he wanted.
Bey’s numbers have gone down in the 11 games since he was traded to Atlanta, but he’s playing a much-different style of game, which brings up questions about why he wasn’t able to do this in Detroit.
Detroit Pistons: Saddiq Bey playing the right role
Saddiq Bey’s time with the Detroit Pistons didn’t go to plan, as he took on a much larger role than he should have this season and was doing things outside of his skillset and comfort zone.
The Detroit Pistons needed him to be a 3-and-D wing, a guy who spreads the floor with his shooting, but Bey persisted in dribbling too much, failing to make passes and taking more shots off the bounce than he should have.
That has all changed in Atlanta, where he is shooting 50 percent from the field as well as the 3-point line. But the important thing is that Bey is taking 63 percent of his shots from behind the arc, which is exactly what the Detroit Pistons needed him to do.
Only 47 percent of his shots were 3-pointers for Detroit and Bey was hitting just 34 percent of them. He’s not going to shoot 50 percent from long range over the course of a season, but it’s more about the fact that he has rounded into the 3-point specialist that he always should have been for the Pistons.
This is either a failure of recognizing a player’s skillset or a failure in getting him to play the role they needed him to play, neither of which reflect positively on Detroit’s coaching staff. Bey is on a much different team now that already had two dominant scorers, but he should have had a similar shot breakdown in Detroit, where he was usually playing with two ball dominant guards as well.
This isn’t all on coaching, as Bey had to accept the role and make it happen on the court, but when you see a player go off and immediately start playing how he should have been used all along, it does raise some questions.
In the end, Bey is better suited to be a bench/role player on a good team and the Detroit Pistons are not that, but you have to wonder why the coaches weren’t able to get him to adjust his game.