Detroit Pistons: James Wiseman wants to avoid these 2 careers

Detroit Pistons: 2 careers James Wiseman wants to avoid

Enes Freedom

First off, thanks to Jason Maples, whose Tweet was the inspiration for this.

Enes Freedom, who was previously Enes Kanter, was taken third overall in the 2011 NBA Draft, which was a memorable draft  that produced superstars like Kyrie Irving, Klay Thompson, Kawhi Leonard and Jimmy Butler.

It’s a pick I’m sure the Utah Jazz would love back, but you can say that about a lot of teams, including the Detroit Pistons.

Freedom was not a bad player by any means, and had a decent career that lasted 11 seasons and would have maybe been more if not for injuries and other extenuating factors that I am not going to get into.

At his peak, he averaged 15.5 points and 8.9 rebounds per game and was very efficient and skilled around the rim. So why did he bounce around and play for seven different teams? He couldn’t defend at all, so as talented as he was offensively, his defense is what kept him off the floor.

Teams need bigs to be able to defend the rim and switch on the perimeter now, and Freedom never averaged more than .5 blocks per game.

Some masochist put together a compilation of some of Freedom’s defensive work and it is brutal. You could argue that Wiseman is already better defensively than Freedom ever was, but he too has a tendency to get pushed around in the paint, get caught flat-footed, get out of position on contests and give up a ton of offensive rebounds.

Freedom showed that offense will only carry you so far if you are consistently giving up dunks.