Jalen Duren worked out for the Detroit Pistons before anyone else even though he wasn’t likely to be drafted as the team’s No. 5 overall pick. Troy Weaver liked the Memphis center’s size, athleticism and potential. He also liked that he’d persevered through a difficult season in an unsteady program.
Duren was on Weaver’s short list of players he thought would make a good Piston. He wanted to be ready if he had the chance to draft him.
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He knew that chance would come if he traded the No. 5 pick for a later lottery pick or if he acquired a second lottery pick by giving something else up. That something else came when he dealt Jerami Grant to Portland for a 2025 first-round pick.
Weaver still can’t talk about the specifics of the trade that led to acquiring Duren. But he can talk about the team’s new rookies.
He didn’t disagree with coach Dwane Casey’s assessment that Duren has a bit of Shawn Kemp’s explosiveness — he sees a bigger Bam Adebayo, Miami’s young star center. Nor did Weaver disagree that when Jaden Ivey takes the court in October, he’ll be one of the fastest players in the league.
Though he doesn’t see as much Ja Morant in Ivey’s game as he sees Russell Westbrook, whom Weaver helped draft for the Oklahoma City Thunder franchise. It may be easy to forget now as Westbrook scuffles with the Los Angeles Lakers, but when he was young, no player attacked the rim more relentlessly, or viciously.
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He was an MVP and the second-best player on a team that made the Finals and two other conference finals appearances. If Ivey gets to anything close to that level, the Pistons will be good sooner rather than later.
The addition of Duren and Ivey sent a jolt to those who love the Pistons last week. Weaver felt the buzz, even though he stays off social media.
“People tell me,” he said Tuesday, still weary from a lack of sleep. “So, I can feel it … I’m excited for the fans (to have something) to be excited about.”
A couple of hours later on Tuesday, Weaver was at it again, trading cap space to the Knicks for a pair of veterans — center Nerlens Noel and guard Alec Burks — and two second-round picks.
In a little more than two years, Weaver remade the Pistons roster. He found Saddiq Bey and Isaiah Stewart in his first draft, and when both showed promise as rookies anticipation began to stir … faintly.
Last year, luck helped land Cade Cunningham and, after an uneven start in part because of injury, the rookie point-forward started to make highlight-worthy plays almost every night. Anticipation grew. The team had its future.
Despite the promising beginning, and despite the goodwill Weaver was building, last week’s draft still felt like a shock. He caught a break when Sacramento passed on Ivey at No. 4, no question. Name a contender in any sport that didn’t.
Still, he grabbed Ivey and kept him, turning down the teams he said bombarded him with offers. And then he went back to work.
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The Grant trade freed more cap space. That gave him the chance to absorb bad contracts. That, in turn, gave him leverage. You know the rest: Less than an hour after getting Ivey, he got Duren.
I don’t remember the last time a general manager in this town set its fanbase ablaze with similar out-of-nowhere possibility.
The Lions had a good draft this spring, as far as we can judge drafts, and Brad Holmes taking a shot on receiver Jameson Williams felt gutsy. Steve Yzerman is methodically adding promising young players to the Red Wings.
Only the Tigers’ Al Avila has struggled in the rebuild of the four major teams, though even he drafted a couple of youngsters that hold promise.
Weaver’s draft last week may not justify the hype — and hope — that has bolted through this desperate sports scene of ours. For now, though, this is beside the point. It’s the way he went about it. It’s also that he is building something recognizable.
The current Pistons and Weaver’s former Thunder aren’t man-for-man mirror images, but the similarities are obvious.
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Both are young, long, athletic and hungry. Both are centered around fluid, three-level scorers that make the game look easy. Both have buoyant, amped-up combo guards that dig annihilating rims. Both had — or have — questions about their shooting.
Though as Weaver pointed out, he and Casey expect an uptick in shooting from Bey, Cunningham and Stewart, and Isaiah Livers is “a big-time shooter.”
“Shooting is on the come,” Weaver said.
This doesn’t mean he isn’t looking for more of it. Every team is. But teams can’t win if they can’t get stops, and it’s hard to get stops if players can’t slide their feet and protect the rim.
That begins with length and athleticism, and while smarts and experience help, too, of course, no team makes a playoff run if its players can’t move. Even Golden State, Weaver pointed out, won this year’s title in part because of its (sneaky) athleticism.
“Everyone gets lost in the fact that they have two of the greatest shooters who’ve ever lived,” he said. “But they are athletic.”
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And they defended.
This is where it starts. And ends. This is where the teams he helped build in Oklahoma City made their imprint. This is what he is trying to do in Detroit.
It will look different in some ways, and it should. But it’s starting to look familiar. It’s starting to look like the foundation of something sustainable.
“Keep stacking the drafts and get the right people in the jerseys,” he said.
He makes it sound so simple. He’s making it look that way, too.
Contact Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @shawnwindsor.