The Detroit Pistons took a flyer on James Wiseman in a trade this season and so far the results have been up and down.
He’s now played 20 games for the Pistons and in that time we have seen the flashes of talent that made him the #2 pick in the 2020 NBA Draft, but also the limitations that made him available in a trade.
Wiseman has averaged 13.1 points, 8.5 rebounds and just under a block per game since joining Detroit and has shown a lot of potential on the offensive end.
Detroit Pistons: James Wiseman can score, but…
The guy can score, that much we know, but the big question is whether he will ever be able to defend enough to really be an effective big in the modern NBA. The Warriors were high on his offensive ability but not so much on the other end according to Anthony Slater of The Athletic (SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED):
"“It’s his defensive awareness,” Steve Kerr once said when asked what’s held him out of the rotation. “Offensively, we know he can score. The guy is always going to be able to score. Regardless of what happens in the short term, if he stays healthy, he’s going to have a good career and score a lot of points. But what we need is defensive awareness and the ability to patrol the paint, rim protect.”"
We’ve seen plenty of big men who can score but not defend over the years, the Detroit Pistons have another one now in Marvin Bagley III, who has a lot of similarities, though Wiseman is a better shooter.
Hopefully the Bagley III experiment is soon to be over, and if so, you could eventually put him on the list of careers James Wiseman wants to avoid. But there are two other players in recent memory who were great around the rim but never evolved enough to stay in the league.
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.
Detroit Pistons: 2 careers James Wiseman wants to avoid
Jahlil Okafor
Like Freedom, Okafor was the 3rd pick in the 2015 NBA Draft and is already out of the league.
I always said that Okafor would have been an All-Star had he played in the 1990’s, when back-to-the-basket post play was still en vogue. Okafor is a bucket around the rim, and if the game only involved post scoring, he’d still have a job.
He averaged 17.5 points, seven rebounds and 1.2 blocks in his rookie season and it looked like the 76ers had found their center.
Unfortunately for Okafor, that was the peak of his career and it was all downhill from there, mostly because his defense wasn’t good enough to justify keeping him on the floor. The 76ers traded him away after only his 2nd season and he bounced around the league until he landed on the Detroit Pistons.
He never averaged more than eight points a game after his rookie season and Okafor is now one of several ex-Pistons lingering in the G-League.
Freedom and Okafor weren’t just limited defensively, they weren’t good screen setters, passers and were never able to extend their range, three criticisms you also hear about Wiseman.
Wiseman arguably has more raw talent than either Freedom or Okafor, but they should be cautionary tales to him, as they too were once thought as elite offensive prospects. But they weren’t able to defend enough to stay in the league, which is the fate he wants to avoid.
The talent is there and James Wiseman will get a full offseason to improve and a full season to prove he’s not just another big man who can score.