(Editor’s note: The Pistons hold the No. 18 and No. 49 picks in the June 23 NBA draft. We’ll preview one candidate for each pick each Monday through Friday leading up to the draft. Players who are consensus lottery picks unavailable to the Pistons will not be profiled.)
First-Round Candidate: Deandre Bembry
ID CARD: 6-foot-53/4 shooting guard/small forward, St. Joseph’s junior, 21 years old
DRAFT RANGE: Ranked 29th on DraftExpress.com; 20th on ESPN.com; fourth among small forwards by NBA.com
SCOUTS LOVE: Bembry, in the simplest terms, is the type of player who contributes to winning basketball. He’s tough, smart and unselfish. He’ll move without the basketball and he’s one of the best passers in the draft, point guards included. He can defend all three perimeter positions, making him an even more valuable player in today’s game when teams run multiple pick-and-roll sets in the same possession.
SCOUTS WONDER: The 3-point shot is Bembry’s biggest question mark. He hit just .312 from the college arc over his three years and his numbers declined each season, bottoming out at .266 as a junior when he attempted 3.6 triples per game. He’s got solid size for a shooting guard at a shade under 6-foot-6, but Bembry would be a little undersized for a steady diet of defending at small forward.
NUMBER TO NOTE: 4.5 – Bembry’s assists per game as a St. Joe’s junior, up from 2.7 as a freshman and 3.6 as a junior even though his playing time remained relatively steady over the course of his three years. Bembry’s passing ability is one of his most appealing qualities as NBA teams are looking to field units of multiple playmakers to counter increasingly sophisticated defensive tactics.
MONEY QUOTE: “He’s terrific. But he’s small. I look at him as more of a two. … He’s really good. He’s not a great shooter. He’s a hell of a player. He can really pass, and I don’t mean a little bit. I mean, he can really pass. He can really rebound. He can guard. I don’t think his shot is broken. It’s a confidence thing with him. He misses a couple and I think he gets gun shy. But he’s going to go in the first round.” – anonymous Northwest Division scout as told to David Aldridge of NBA.com
PISTONS FIT: It would be easy to see Stan Van Gundy falling for Bembry because of the qualities he brings, even in the face of his shaky 3-point shooting. But Bembry might get bumped down a few spots on the Pistons’ draft board because of their depth at the wing with Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Stanley Johnson and Marcus Morris all entrenched figures and Darrun Hillard, Jodie Meeks and Reggie Bullock offering even more depth at the position.
BOTTOM LINE: Teams reaching for prospects with seemingly higher ceilings might be greatly disappointed in a few years if Bembry evolves into a Jimmy Butler-type player who plays both ends, brings toughness and makes teammates better. If his 3-point shot was a little more reliable or hadn’t dipped in his third college season, he’d be a lock for the lottery. Even without it, he looks like the type of player who’s going to be someone a coach trusts and spends a long time in the NBA.
Second-Round Candidate: Wayne Selden
ID CARD: 6-foot-53/4 shooting guard, Kansas junior, 21 years old
DRAFT RANGE: Ranked 47th on DraftExpress.com; 69th on ESPN.com; seventh among shooting guards by NBA.com
SCOUTS LOVE: Potential has always been in the same sentence as Wayne Selden’s name. It starts with a tremendous physique, built along the lines of former scoring star Isaiah Rider. Selden measured at a solid 232 pounds with 7 percent body fat at the NBA draft combine and a 6-foot-101/2 wing span. He has the tools to project to a starting shooting guard if his skills catch up to his raw physical ability.
SCOUTS WONDER: Selden shot 39 percent from the college 3-point arc during his resurgent junior season, but you’ll always hear questions about his perimeter shooting ability. He was also just a 63 percent foul shooter. For as physical as he appears, he didn’t put up very good rebounding numbers and he had close to as many turnovers as assists.
NUMBER TO NOTE: 12 – where Selden was slotted in Rivals.com’s ranking of the top high school prospects in the class of 2013. He arrived at Kansas as ballyhooed as two other recruits that gave Bill Self the nation’s top recruiting class that year – Andrew Wiggins, who would become the No. 1 pick in 2014 and Joel Embiid, who was taken No. 3 but has yet to play an NBA game due to recurring foot problems that cost him the chance to be the first player taken.
MONEY QUOTE: “If you’re looking at the next level, he has to identify who he is, or what he is. He’s not a scorer. He’s a streaky shooter. When he’s making shots, he makes shots. But it always worries you when a guy misses badly. He’ll shoot two air balls and then he’ll make three in a row. He’s good in transition because he’s strong and athletic, but if I was considering drafting him I’d try to make him more of a defensive player at the one or the two, maybe the three. Physically, I think he could be a really good defensive player.” – anonymous college coach of a Kansas opponent as told to David Aldridge of ESPN.com
PISTONS FIT: As with Deandre Bembry and all other prospects who project as shooting guards and/or small forwards, the Pistons will need to ask themselves if they want to dedicate another roster spot next season to a player at that position when they already have four shooting guards under contract plus Stanley Johnson and Marcus Morris at small forward.
BOTTOM LINE: There are some players who come out of high school as five-star recruits but have to adapt their games at the college level when grouped with the number of McDonald’s All-Americans a place like Kansas typically accrues. If NBA scouts see Selden as someone who still holds the scintillating potential he was said to have three years ago – and his junior season at Kansas suggests could still be there to tap – he’d be an ideal draft pick late in the second round.
