Brandon Knight, point guard from the University of Kentucky Wildcats.
With Bismack Biyombo, Jonas Valanciunas and Tristan Thompson off the board (only Biyombo and Thompson were slated to go to #8), Detroit was left with making a stunningly obvious pick of Brandon Knight, the talented first year point guard from the University of Kentucky. Here are some of the measurables, on Knight (from the combine):
6’3 (in shoes), 177 pounds. 6’6.75″ wingspan, 8’2.5″ standing reach, 4.2 percent body fat, 37.5″ vertical, 10 reps on the bench (not bad for how small he is), 3.07 3/4 court sprint.
These measurables don’t usually translate too much on the court except for vertical and strength. There are some other things that stand out about this kid that show he is just the type of player that the Pistons need following a year of on (and off) the court embarrassment. Knight maintained a 4.0 GPA at Kentucky, and helped lead the Kentucky Wildcats to the 2011 Final Four where they lost to Kemba Walker and the UConn Huskies by 1 point.
He shot a pretty consistent 46% from 2 and 37% from 3. As is the case with a lot of college players, Knight fell in love with the 3 point shot with upward of 6 3 attempts per game. Knight needs to be better from the free throw line (79%) and he’ll need to work on his AST/Turn ratio (1.33).
I am satisfied with the pick, but only because I was resigned to the fact that Utah was going to pick him at #3. Utah, who recently traded their franchise point guard, desperately needed a point guard prospect and now will look to fill that hole in free agency or via trade and the commonly discussed name is always Al Jefferson or as a sign and trade for a guy like Kirilenko which is unlikely.
Do I think Detroit’s #1 need is another guard? No, but they do need a point guard and I believe they got the best point guard in the draft. He’s remained healthy, he lead the Wildcats to the Final Four a year after just about their entire active roster left for the NBA Draft, and he brings size to the point guard position for Detroit. I prefer Knight over any of the big men that were selected from #7 or later. I think he falls in line with the “Best player available” line of thinking, and at the draft party Team President Joe Dumars said how surprised they were that Knight fell to them at #8 and it’s clear that our new superstar owner, Tom Gores, is “impressed with how Joe and his team handled the process”.
I give the pick a B+. I’m satisfied with the selection if Detroit is stuck with Knight. I think he can step in, in year 2 and make an impact. Knight is the youngest players in the NBA Draft, and I think as his 1st season goes on he is the type of intelligent basketball player who could take what he’s learned off the court and apply it to his trade on the court. Draft Express has Knight ranked as the #6 prospect in the top 100 and has his “best case” as “Chauncey Billups in his prime” and “worst case” as “Louis Williams”. I don’t want the comment section to fill up with Billups comparison, but I did want to throw that out there for all the Billups’ lovers. Knight almost single handedly beat the Ohio State Buckeyes in this past year’s NCAA Tournament as well… so for all you Wolverines out there, there’s that.
Now all the team needs is a Head Coach. I’m on Team Frank, as if you didn’t know already.
I still would have rather seen biyombo on the roster. We have plenty of offensive potential, defense is what’s hurting us incredibly bad. Sure hope these next two picks are solid
Yeah but Biyombo was picked earlier so there weren’t any big men left on the draft. It was either Kemba or Knight and I think the Pistons picked up the right guy.
PS: I’m kinda excited to see Biyombo + Kemba play together in Charlotte!
I sure hope Knight is a better player than Kemba…Brandon has a better character but idk what to say…Don’t get me wrong guys.. i just want what’s best for the pistons …But i think kemba is a better player… as for Biyombo, he’s i have a feeling he’s gonna be the next ekpe udoh 🙂
he looked really upset or ‘serious” when he was selected. I bet there could be a chance he is traded in a package with rip or maybe stuckey with rip. Knight is a good kid, i think he has a big upside.
So does this mean the rediculous Stuckey point guard disaster is finally over?
YESSS i swear singler is the man !!!!!!!!!!! i’m so happy we drafted him
I’m Not there was far better talent at the 33rd spot than this dude
Why on God’s Green Earth the pistons Drafting “HOOPER THE HORSE”???
Tyler Honeycutt was the smart pick at that spot…
HORRIBLE PICK!!!!
Knight is a great pick for the Pistons are you kidding me. Look at John Calipari point guards in the NBA (Derrick Rose, Tyreke Evans and John Wall). He is a great coach and gets these kids NBA ready within a year. You think he would of started a freshman if he wasn’t that good which he was spectacular for them. Another thing he is a smart kid, note that a kid. At 19 he can be molded into a very good point guard for the future. I hope the Pistons roster looks like: starting PG Tony Parker, SG Gordan, SF Prince, PF J.J., and C Monroe, and the Bench PG Knight, SG Bynum, SF Daye, PF ????(hopefully not CV31), C Wilcox. This I am hoping to come true what do you think Nat or Danny or the Need4Sheed community?
Spurs traded George Hill to the Pacers, so I think its unlikely that they’re still shopping Parker, and I also think Tay is bolting. We’ve still got to shake things up a lot, but drafting Knight is the best place to start. I was hoping Kemba would fall to 8, things turned out better than I’d hoped.
Great Start potential pick… great job…
Holy cow didn’t watch draft on tv was at the beach we got knight111!!! What a great pick. You gotta take the best player. Watched knight in the ncaa v good player we won’t be disappont. Jerebko monroe knight and I still like stcukey we are getting thbere my friends. Pistons have been a team of 12 6th men and slowly but surely we are gettin legit starters
if edt says this was a good pick then it was a good pick.
Yeah, Knight was a nice prospect that dropped to us. The only other thing that would have been good is a trade down, but apparently that wasn’t possible. I’ll take Knight and be happy with what I see, especially in this one Kentucky vid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR9x8alen3I
Ball handling and shot selection meh, but there’s hope to fix that. Knight has more than enough ability to work in the NBA.
Hopefully Knight and Monroe get better and better.
Great Pick Guys!!! I really think Brandon will help the team on DAY 1!!!
And he brings size to the pg position.??? Danny umm stuckey is 6’5″ knight is 6’3″ . Unless ur trying to say knight will be our backup pg then yes ur right, he is taller than wIll. But i think will and stuckey are better than knight. I hope im mistaken cuase i dont want this to be a wasted draft pick.
Out of those 3 players, Knight is the only one who is a real PG. You need a PG who can actually pass and create shots for his teammates.
I think his stock fell because be refused to work out against live competition and that worries me also, if you’re a competitor then you don’t run away from competition. What was he trying to hide by not going against Walker and Jimmer or did he just think he was better than they were and didn’t need to actually prove it. I don’t like the pick because at the end of the day he’s just another “combo guard” trying to become a point guard. I hope he succeeds but I’,m not optimistic.
No B. Knight is a legit point guard who started at that position all year for UK. I just don’t see where people are getting this “combo guard” aspect of his game. I hate Calipari w/ a passion because i think he’s as dirty as Jim Tressel, but one thing is for sure he knows how to develop pg’s for the next level. (see Wall, John; Evans, Tyreke; Rose, Derrick)
Notice how only one of those is a winner at the pro level.
Notice how all of them are on lottery teams except d-rose who fell in a very good position
Haha wall was a rookie, tyreke 2nd yr. Oh man what losers not even winning championships yet. dood yur smrt!
Knight can run a team trust me him monroe jerebko Gordon and Faye is a good core I think We should trade stuckey tho
Daye*
He kinda looks like CJ Miles in this picture lol. Anyway, great pick. I was expecting Bismack though but was acquired earlier. But wow Knight is the steal in this draft.
Hope he doesn’t bring back this lame haircut: http://www.courier-journal.com/blogs/demling/uploaded_images/Brandon-Knight0609mug-735310.jpg
Is it just me or did he not look too happy when his name was called
Knight expected to go pretty high, like 3rd, to the Jazz. To see his position plummet might have had a lot to do with his general look on-stage.
Trade gordon or rip for milsap and draft picks from Utah.
combo guard, stretch four… I’m not liking this trend too much. I hope Knight turns out to be a true point guard as he seems to insist he is though
I really wanted Biyombo but given that he was gone we just gotta take the best left
I think Markieff would have been better for our needs. I’m still scratching my head as to how a freshman Tristan Thompson was rated above the Morris twins.
PG: Knight
SG: Stuck
SF: Daye
PF: Monroe
C: Either free agent or trade
I’d rather have: PG-Knight SG-Gordon SF- Trade Stuckey PF- Monroe C- Free agent ( Marc Gasol or Nene ). Then you would have a bench of: PG- Bynum SG- White SF- Daye PF- Jerebko C- Wallace
I believe Nene has already been resigned or at least thrown an offer, and this was a couple weeks ago.
I liked Marc gasol better anyway
So do I. It would be a dream right now to snag him. We’ll sure have a lot of money to do it with Prince leaving. It’s going to be a tough draw admittedly.
Sign and trade Stuckey for like Deng
jerebko will be starting, monroe, knight, and I have to think stuckey if he is still on the team, charlie v and ben gordon have to come off the bench, daye might still be one year away from starting he didnt improve much last year.
Honestly I think we are gonna get a deal for milsap. Utah has kanter (rookie), favors (1 year), al jefferson (7 year pro $13 million), and milsap (5 year pro $6 million), so they are gonna move either milsap or al jefferson, the jazz are thin at guards.
Now there is no way in hell I can figure out how Dumars will make it work, the salaries and people in a trade don’t make any sense to me, but that’s not my job, I’m just looking at Utah and see they would sure love to have some of our guards, and we sure would like to have Milsap.
I think if there’s no lockout, we’ll see
knight, stuckey, jerebko, milsap, monroe, which should be good enough to make to get back into the playoffs and make a run.
I really don’t like starting Ben Gordon because he has sub par defense. Likewise for Daye, and Charlie V, they can’t guard elite players, and should come off the bench.
As for rip hamilton, who knows, maybe he’ll still be a piston, and stuckey will be gone. Rip is still a heck of a player, knight + hamilton is a fine back court, and then we’ll run knight, rip, jerebko, milsap & monroe, with charlie V and Ben Gordon coming off the bench.
One thing for sure, we can’t have this many guards! Rip, Stuckey, Bynum, Knight, Gordon, a 5 man rotation is 2 men too many. I sure do want to keep bynum, because we just resigned him.
If u think we need to cut back 2 guards I’d say trade stuckey and rip I’d sign and trade stuckey for a decent small foward and rip for like u said Milsap if he’s worth that much. So ud have: PG Knight SG Gordon SF Stuckey trade PF Milsap C Monroe so ud have a bench of Bynum Daye Wallace Jerebko Charlie V
Utah still has Okur too, meaning they have at least five legit PFs and Cs. I think they still have that Fesenko guy too.
I just watched a vid on NBA.com and DA says it makes perfects sense for a Milsap for Hamilton trade to go down. So hopefully it happens in the next few days
What about rip about 12 million 2 years left and Charlie v about 7 million 3 years left for Milsap about 7 million 2 years left and okur about 9 million expiring contract that’d be great for us and the trade works
not sure why utah does this deal, charlie v can’ t play in utah they have no use for him.
They would have to throw in some1 else to make it a legal trade