Dumars Happy with the #15 Pick in the 2009 Draft

Posted Friday, June 19, 2009

Joe D’s confident Pistons can get value at 15

When the Pistons got Rodney Stuckey with the 15th pick in the 2007 draft, they went into draft night hoping Stuckey would fall to them but relatively certain they would leave the war room that night with a player capable of giving them some important minutes as a rookie.

Conventional wisdom is that this draft won’t be nearly as likely to produce the same type of talent at 15, but Joe Dumars sounded relatively optimistic on that front when we talked Friday afternoon.

He said the focus is down to about four or five players – you can read Part I of the transcript of our conversation or listen to the audio – and he thinks the Pistons are going to come away with somebody good enough to dent the rotation next season.

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” he said. “We like the guys in the 10 to 15 range. These particular guys may not be guys you project as stars, but you can still project them as really good players.”

I’ve never thought it was likely that the Pistons would trade out of the first round, but I did view it as a possibility. Now? My hunch is that the Pistons will stay put and happily take who falls to them at 15.

The cap hold for the 15th spot is about $1.4 million – money that could be spent on free agents if the Pistons were to trade out of the first round. While it would be nice to have the extra cushion – that $1.4 million probably will wind up representing 7 or 8 percent of the Pistons’ total cap space – it’s not worth passing on the cost certainty of getting the first four years of a productive player’s career at a relatively bargain rate.

A word about cap space. Since executing the Chauncey Billups-Allen Iverson deal, estimates of what the Pistons would have at their disposal have been all over the map. The earliest projections were somewhere around $22 million, based on the assumption that the cap would increase as it has virtually every year of its 25-year existence. But it’s likely to come down slightly from the $58.68 million it was set at last season.

The exact number won’t be set by the league until early July, but Dumars told me he’s going into the summer expecting somewhere between $17 million and $19 million.

That number would expand by $4.1 million if Kwame Brown exercises his right to opt out of the final year of his contract, but Dumars said he’s had discussions with Brown’s agent, Mark Bartelstein, and while nothing is set in stone, he expects and wants Brown back.

Dumars said that he expects one for certain and possibly two of his three second-round choices – all in the upper half of the round at 35, 39 and 44 – to play overseas next season, but he’s optimistic that the player the Pistons take at 35 will have a shot at cracking the 15-man roster.

He’s also very much looking forward to seeing the third of last year’s three second-rounders, swingman Deron Washington, in Las Vegas next month with the Pistons’ entry in the NBA Summer League. Washington had a terrific season in Israel, developing both a spot-up jump shot and an off-the-dribble game. His strength, however, remains his ability to defend the perimeter where his length and athleticism could make him an impact player on that end. It sounds like there’s a very real chance Washington will make the 15-man roster next fall.

Trent Plaisted, whose season in Italy was wiped out by a back injury, is more than likely ticketed for another season overseas. Michael Curry was high on Plaisted’s defensive instincts and ability to defend the pick and roll in Las Vegas last summer.

It’ll be a big summer for Walter Sharpe, who’ll need to start translating his considerable physical gifts to productivity.