Pistons Feel They Nabbed 3 First-Round Talents

Posted Friday, June 26, 2009
Pistons feel they nabbed 3 first-round talents

If you’d have told Joe Dumars and his staff before Thursday’s draft that they’d come to pick 35 with their choice of DaJuan Summers and Jonas Jerebko, they’d have been floored – and ecstatic. If you’d have told them they’d come away with both players, obtained at picks 35 and 39 – on top of getting Austin Daye at 15 – well, put it this way: Step One of the summer of major reconstruction could not have gone any better for them.

They went into Thursday night convinced both Summers and Jerebko – pronounced “YO-nus Yer-EB-ko” – would be off the board before the second round began.

“There was a time Summers was in our discussion for the pick at 15,” David said of the 6-foot-8½, 245-pound Summers, whose strength and beautiful shot are his two most striking attributes. “Were we surprised he was still there at 35? Very.”

David said that he generally avoids stereotyping players from the same college program, but he’s been struck by the character of players Georgetown has produced. Pistons VP Scott Perry told him that when he was with Seattle two years ago and they took Georgetown’s Jeff Green, he found Green to be one of the highest-character players he’d ever been around.

“When DaJuan came in, that was one of the first things that struck you,” he said. “When we took him to dinner the night before, a very high character kid, and then you take a look at what he can do on the court. This is somebody that doesn’t make a lot of mistakes. If what we see now is exactly what we get, then we’re pretty happy with that. In a draft a lot of experts considered uncertain, this kid is more of a certainty. For us to say we were thrilled is an understatement.”

They didn’t hesitate to take Summers, but Jerebko was a close second.

The story on him is interesting. David flew to Italy, where the Swede was playing professionally for Angelico Biella, to see him in February. He landed in Milan and headed straight to practice – only to learn it had been canceled.

“In Europe, those teams practice two or three times a day,” David said. “So when they get a day off, it’s the equivalent of New Year’s Day here. Those players really celebrate their days off. The coach and the GM apologized for having canceled the practice and invited me to lunch and to see their new practice facility. So I walked into the gym and there were two players there in a full-drenched sweat. One of them was Jerebko. He had come in on his day off and got up 500 shots that morning.”

Because his team wasn’t playing at the Euroleague level – the top handful of teams from each of Europe’s best pro leagues – Jerebko flew a little under the radar most of the season. But then he led his team to a huge upset of the Rome team that included Brandon Jennings in the Italian league playoffs before losing a tough series to Milan. His extended playoff season limited Jerebko’s participation in the Reebok Eurocamp held annually in Treviso, Italy.

“We thought he was going to come, shake hands and that was it,” David said. “But he played the last day at the Eurocamp and was really good. I told Joe that’s it, the jig was up. He carried his team to a huge playoff upset, goes to Treviso and plays great. The secret was out. He was going to be out of our range at 35.”

Jerebko’s father is American and played college basketball before playing professionally in Sweden. And Jerebko has been a frequent visitor to the United States who the past several summers has played in the best summer league in Washington, D.C., against the likes of Kevin Durant and Michael Beasley. He speaks fluent English without the hint of an accent. During a live chat on ESPN.com during the draft Thursday, he compared his game to Tayshaun Prince’s.

Prince, of course, is also the reference point for Daye, the 6-foot-11, 192-pound first-rounder.

When the Pistons brought in Prince for his individual workout in 2002, Dumars instructed Perry, now his vice president but them immersed strictly in college scouting, to line up the toughest wing defender in the country to test Prince’s toughness and ability to deal with physical defense. On one drive to the basket, San Diego State’s Randy Holcomb buried Prince and drove him into the stanchion. When Joe D saw Prince bounce back up and take the ball to the basket on the next possession, he called agent Bill Duffy and said he knew whom he was taking with the 22nd pick.

The Pistons saw similar things out of Daye when they worked him out against players like Texas’ rugged Damian James and USC’s long and athletic Taj Gibson.

“We brought some aggressive defenders in to play against him and he really didn’t back down from them and that impressed us,” David said.

When I talked to Joe D a week ago, he said he was reasonably confident that the player the Pistons would find at 35 would be good enough to crack the roster next season, but he thought it likely that the picks at 39 and 44 probably would be best served by spending a year or two overseas.

That thinking has changed now. David said it wouldn’t be a stretch at all that all three draftees could make the team next fall. In fact, after landing Summers and Jerebko – two first-round talents, the Pistons believe – they were content to trade 44 to Houston for cash and a future second-rounder.

They’ll know more, of course, after getting to work with all three players during the Las Vegas Summer League in a few weeks. The competition should be fierce for minutes at the two forward spots with Daye, Summers and Jerebko joined by last year’s second-rounders, Walter Sharpe and Deron Washington, in addition to Trent Plaisted, who more than likely will play center in Vegas. It’s likely Washington will get the majority of his minutes at shooting guard because of the roster overload at forward, which will also give the Pistons a better idea of how his offensive game has matured in one impressive season in Israel.

It’s also clear that the heat is turned up on Sharpe, who had some punctuality and other issues of professionalism as a rookie.

This much is certain: With at least seven players on their Las Vegas roster who the brass believes has the chance to be on their NBA roster either this year or soon – Daye, Summers, Jerebko, Plaisted, Washington, Sharpe and Will Bynum, who is playing at his choice – it will be a far more compelling Summer League season than usual.

I’ll be in Las Vegas sending reports back on all of those players – and, hey, it’ll also be my debut on Twitter, assuming I’m sharp enough to figure out how to do it.