Drafting is quite an important thing when it comes to building a successful franchise, especially if you’re one of those teams that always seem to come empty-handed even despite having several lottery picks.
If you have a top-10 pick, you’re likely to land a potential franchise player, but you need to do a proper scouting job if you don’t want to end up regretting passing on some guys to land mere busts.
A team that looks like they always find a way to mess up in the Draft is the Detroit Pistons, a franchise that is yet to go back to their old glory days since the 2004 Championship. Today, we’re going to let you know about their biggest drafting mistakes ever.
2003 NBA Draft: Darko Milicic
The class of 2003 will go down in history as one of the most prolific and stacked classes ever, as it brought us some of the greatest talents in the history of the game, but none of them is called Darko Milicic.
Darko Milicic was taken with the 2nd overall pick, right after LeBron James himself. What makes this one a terrible pick, is the fact that they got him over players of the likes of Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Carmelo Anthony, or even David West and Kyle Korver.
2010 NBA Draft: Greg Monroe
The Detroit Pistons got a solid rebounder when they drafted Monroe with the 7th overall pick of the 2010 NBA Draft, but when Andre Drummond established himself later on as the team’s lead big man, there was not much use for a tweener center with no defensive IQ.
Also, the class of 2010 was loaded with talents that somehow went overlooked, and the Pistons could’ve had Gordon Hayward, Paul George, Eric Bledsoe or even Hassan Whiteside instead of him.
2011 NBA Draft: Brandon Knight
Brandon Knight was supposed to be the Pistons’ franchise player, as he was a crafty baller that could put defenders on skates, create off the dribble, run the point and score in bunches, but his career took a major free fall since they traded him away.
Moreover, if they were just going to get rid of him when his trade value was at an all-time high, they should’ve used that 8th overall pick to get Kemba Walker, Klay Thompson, Kawhi Leonard, Nikola Vucevic, Tobias Harris, Nikola Mirotic, Jimmy Butler or Isaiah Thomas.
2013 NBA Draft: Kentavious Caldwell-Pope
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope was playing very good for the Detroit Pistons but somehow they just let him walk and didn’t match any offer sheets from their 3 and D shooting guard, who’s now thriving with the Lakers.
Moreover, wasting yet another 8th overall pick just to let a guy walk is a blatant disrespect for their fans, especially with him playing so well. Also, they could’ve landed CJ McCollum, Steven Adams, Dennis Schroder, Giannis Antetokounmpo or Rudy Gobert.
2015 NBA Draft: Stanley Johnson
Once again, the Detroit Pistons were entitled with the 8th overall pick, and they used him to get Stanley Johnson, who was supposed to be the next two-way stud to take the league for assault and turn their franchise around.
While Johnson has been solid in the defensive end of the hardwood, his offensive game is yet to catch up, and he looks more like a liability than a star in the making at this point. Also, they could’ve drafted Myles Turner, Devin Booker, Terry Rozier or Montrezl Harrell.
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2017 NBA Draft: Luke Kennard
Perhaps it’s still pretty early to tell that this was a huge mistake, but so far, Luke Kennard has shown little to none improvement from his rookie season, and he’s not even looking worthy of being a 1st round pick, to be honest.
With the 12th overall pick, the Pistons took the shooting guard out of Duke University, when they could’ve used that pick to get Donovan Mitchell, Kyle Kuzma, Josh Hart, Bam Adebayo, John Collins, OG Anunoby, or even Jordan Bell.
