Detroit Bad Boys

When the Pistons traded Maurice Evans for Cheick Samb last summer, I figured it was little more than an effort to dump Evans’ contract for a long-shot prospect who might not ever play a single minute in the NBA.

That still may be the case, but over the past year Samb has emerged from a complete unknown to a name people are starting to talk about. Chad Ford wrote about Samb yesterday for ESPN Insider, ranking him the 10th-best international prospect:

Africa is still the new frontier in NBA scouting. The league has had a presence there for a few years with the Basketball Without Borders program, and a few teams — including the Mavericks and Nuggets — have full-time African scouts. But for the most part, it’s not easy to evaluate and project players from Africa.

A good example is Samb. He got little-to-no buzz before the 2006 draft, and the Pistons stole him late in the second round without much fanfare. Then Samb arrived at the Las Vegas Summer League and shocked people with his size, athleticism and ability.

Now 22, Samb spent this year playing for Cornella in Spain, working on his game and building up his thin frame. Over the course of the year, he’s gained nearly 30 pounds and is starting to dominate in his league. He had 19 points and 15 rebounds the other night and it seems, in a few years, he might be the answer to some of the Pistons’ big-man woes.

I’m going to skip right over Ford’s comment about Detroit’s “big-man woes,” since the only “woe” they have right now is which player to leave out of the rotation. Also, as astute Pistons fans are likely chomping at the bit to point out, Samb isn’t playing in Spain’s top division, but Tony Ronzone, Pistons director of basketball operations and international scout extraordinaire, claims he’s still facing some tough competition. From Keith Langlois on Pistons.com:

Ronzone said Samb is capable of playing in Spain’s top division, but doesn’t because Cornella’s counterpart in the first division is loaded with older players in a system that leans toward seniority.

“He could have played on the first team but it would have been spot minutes,” Ronzone said. “The first team guys are 28 and 30 and it’s an age thing there. But there (sic) level two league is comparable to high Division I (American college basketball). Those guys can play.”

Ford recently had Ronzone on as a guest on his Daily Dish podcast, where he spoke more about Samb’s progress. The entire interview is worth a listen (mp3), but kudos to Justin Rogers of MLive for transcribing the pertinent parts:

Ford: You talk about Africa, The Pistons drafted a guy named Cheick Samb late in the draft and nobody had really heard about him. Even on the internet, the few photos that were available were kind of grainy. Then he shows up at the NBA Summer League camp in Las Vegas and he puts up pretty some big numbers for a guy no one has heard of, and I think surprised a lot of people. How did you find this guy and what kind of prospect do you think he can be?

Ronzone: I think he’s going to be an incredible prospect. A great story about when we brought him over to play in Vegas and we’re flying from Phoenix to Las Vegas, you know Cheick speaks very little English. He speaks Spanish, French and two different African dialects. So we’re flying into Vegas and he looks at me and say, “Coach, coach, this is Detroit?”

“No Cheick, this is Las Vegas”

“Oh I like.”

You have to remember, this is the first time he’s played or even been in America, and he doesn’t really understand our coaches’ terminology, but he goes out there and plays really well.

When he arrived in Las Vegas he was a whopping 205 pounds, but since that time he’s put on 35 pounds. I just showed some of the staff, including Joe Dumars, a photo of Samb because I saw him last month and the first thing they say is, “Who is that? Is that Nene?” because that’s what his body looks like now. His body has completely changed. We’re really excited to have him come back this summer to see the improvement. He’s 7′ 2″ with a 7′ 8″ wingspan, but the beauty is that he can catch and shoot. He’ll step out and shoot a three, he’ll go down in the post and he has great passion for the game.

Samb has only been playing basketball for only five years. He’s from Senegal and he was found pretty much because of his brother, who I can’t speak about right now because he’s an underage player. His brother was recruited to play for Barcelona, and the GM over there is a good friend of mind, so that’s how I got the connection with Cheick. Their mother said that if you take the young one you have to bring Cheick too, and he just happened to develop a lot quicker than anyone expected. We’re very fortunate to have landed him late in the second round and we’re hoping we’ve found another Mehmet Okur, but he’s obviously a different type of player.

No matter how questionable the competition he’s facing is right now, I’m excited about adding a 7-foot-2 center with that kind of wingspan and range to the end of the bench a year or so down the line. Will he ever start a game? Maybe not, but I don’t see why he couldn’t eventually crack a rotation. Yes, he’s already a bit old for a prospect, but his circumstances are unique considering he’s only been playing organized ball for a few years now. Plus, under the tutelage of professional coaches he’s apparently already made great strides — not to mention filled out his previously rail-thin frame, which was the biggest knock on him last summer. Consider my interest piqued.

The 10 best international NBA prospects [ESPN Insider ($)]
Futures Market [Pistons.com]
Pistons scout hypes Cheick Samb [MLive.com’s Full-Court Press]

Previously on DBB:
John Hammond watches Alex Acker and Cheick Samb

I’m just about the last one to comment on this, but Joe Dumars was recently a guest on ESPN’s Chad Ford podcast.

The two cover a variety of subjects, starting with how Dumars was this close to pulling off a trade for Allen Iverson back in the summer of the 2000.How close is this close? Close enough that Dumars had already called Roundball One’s pilot to meet him at the airport in two hours to pick up Iverson. The proposed four-way deal, which would have cost Detroit Jerry Stackhouse and Jerome Williams, fell apart at the last second when Matt Geiger, of all people, refused to re-work a trade kicker for the deal to work within the salary cap.

Dumars said he was looking to make a deal that would give the Pistons, who were just 42-40 in 1999-2000, some sort of identity — and it’s hard to argue that a 25-year-old Iverson wouldn’t have done just that. Iverson went on to win the MVP in 2001, leading the 76ers to the NBA Finals with an otherwise hodgepodge roster. (Of course, what wasn’t mentioned in the interview is that Dumars accomplished that task with another deal that summer — the Grant Hill for Ben Wallace and Chucky Atkins sign-and-trade.)

Dumars goes on to say that not only has he not entertained the notion of jumping into the Iverson sweepstakes but that it’s too early to consider a trade of any sort. He points out that the Pistons had just 26 games remaining when they acquire Rasheed Wallace in 2004, whereas they barely have 20 games in the books right now.

The whole interview runs about 16 minutes, so if you have the time I recommend checking it out. As Henry Abbott pointed out, it’s obvious Ford and Dumars have a very good rapport, which results in a more natural back-and-forth than some interviews.

Joe Dumars talks with Chad Ford [ESPN.com]

Joe Dumars spoke with a couple of hundred Pistons season ticket holders on the phone today. He answered (pre-submitted) questions, and fortunately for those of us who weren’t on the call, Natalie Sitto from Need4Sheed provides a transcription of some of the more interesting questions. Here’s a sample:

Q: Will Amir Johnson be playing more?

A: “Yes, it’s a long season and they are going to try to find minutes for Amir.” They think Amir has an incredible upside and they want to get him on the floor more this year.

Eh, I’ll believe it when I see it.

Q: Do you believe Chauncey is a max salary player?

A: “What a guys number is, is whatever you negotiate. Whether he’s a max or not it’s irrelevant.”" We are committed to keeping Chauncey here.”

I hope so, but again, I’ll believe it when I see it.

Q: What’s wrong with Rasheed, why won’t they give him the ball in the post?

A: “That’s a two way street. Sometimes he has to get there and call for it. Sometimes Rasheed doesn’t get there and demand the ball in the post. So sometimes that is the issue as much as the guys not getting him the ball in the post. Rasheed is not a guy that you’re are going to get the ball and throw it in the post for 48 minutes. He’s not that type of guy, he is going to float out to the three point line, he’s going to pick and roll, he’s going to pick and pop he’s going to do all those things. He is going to move around a lot on the floor. Me personally, I would love to see him down on the block a whole lot more, but I also understand that you have to allow a player to play and feel comfortable on the floor. Usually what you see is when the game gets tight in the fourth quarter or when it’s tight and we really need a basket you can rest assured that he goes down there then. He understands how good he is in the post, he just doesn’t want to have to play that position the entire 48 minutes. He usually gets down there when things are really tight though.”

It’s always good to hear from the man in charge, but I beg to differ about Rasheed’s play in the low post: far, far too often I find myself cringing when he takes random three-pointers late in tight games. Sometimes they go in, sometimes they don’t, but I’m amazed that a guy who’s shot 51.4% for his career on two-point field goals and just 33.9% on threes has such a green light.In all fairness, his two-point percentage is down this year (.462) while his three-point percentage is up (.395), but that I’ll just say “sample size.” Maybe it wouldn’t annoy me so much if his little turnaround jumper from the block (you know what I’m talking about, where his arms are fully extended before he even releases the ball) wasn’t so freaking devastating and impossible to defend — I don’t think I’ve ever seen that shot blocked.