DJ White may have only been a Piston for one hot minute on draft night, but I’d still like to wish him a speedy recovery — he’s expected to have surgery on his jaw next week to remove a benign growth. He’ll miss four to six months.
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DJ White wasn’t a Piston for long. The Pistons just traded him to the Sonics for the 32nd and 46th overall picks. And with the 32nd pick, the Pistons get … Walter Sharpe.
Wow — I don’t think anyone expected the Pistons to have this many options. With Mario Chalmers, Chris Douglas-Roberts, Bill Walker and DeAndre Jordan still on the board, the Pistons selected DJ White out of Indiana with the 29th overall pick. I guess we should have figured — it was a month ago that word of a promise first leaked.
If you remember, we got a couple of interesting scouting reports on White last month when word of the promise first broke. Here’s Indiana alum PostmanR’s take from Inside the Hall:
He finally reached his potential this year — he was a bear and real consistent. Former McDonalds All-American, averaged a double-double, was Big Ten player of the year. Skill-wise, he’s a good rebounder, he’s got kind of a turn around hook that he can work well but I wouldn’t go so far as to call him “athletic” — he was a bit of klutz at times. He’s a high character guy, had to wade through all the bullshit with the coaching changes and whatnot. I mean, in the late first round, it’s not easy to get an impact guy but you’re getting a consistent hard-worker who can play in a system.
Our own LawyerBoy, another Indiana alum, had this to say:
As a five-star prospect (#15 overall in 2004 for Rivals.com) I was disappointed a lot in D.J. and thought he was inconsistent for the first three years of his career. This year however, the guy absolutely blew me away. I had no faith in him for this year and he wasn’t just good this year, he was DOMINANT during a tumultuous season where he got his 3rd head coach of his IU career mid-season! He has a weird game at about 6′8 245, but he’s like Maxiell minus the freakish athleticism (read: leaping ability & explosiveness) and plus a little more offensive savvy with his back to the basket. White plays his behind off on every single play on both sides. D.J. is incredibly strong and he has a nice midrange jumper with a full compliment of post moves. He could be a useful guy in the league, he may not be.
Update: ummm … nevermind. DJ White just got traded to the Sonics.
Pistons director of player personnel George David spoke to the Free Press about which players the team has already worked out:
David wouldn’t divulge every prospect the team has worked out, but he did give some names: Vanderbilt shooting guard Shan Foster, Tennessee-Martin combo guard Lester Hudson, Israeli small forward Omri Casspi, Kansas State swingman Bill Walker, Alabama power forward Richard Hendrix and Indiana power forward D.J. White, all of whom would be considered for the first-round pick.
The team also has worked out Virginia Tech swingman Deron Washington, Southern Cal forward Davon Jefferson, Hillsborough (Fla.) Community College forward Keith Brumbraugh and Georgetown forward Patrick Ewing Jr., for its second-round slot.
According to Internet rumors, the Pistons promised White that they’ll draft him if possible — but David laughed at the notion. “From what I’ve heard, we’ve made four promises,” he said. “His promise was two weeks ago, so that’s about three promises behind.”
Is David telling the truth about White? I’m inclined to believe him, but only because that rumor didn’t seem to grow legs beyond the initial report. But if the Pistons did make a promise, I’d expect David to brush it off, just like how Joe Dumars denied making a promise to Rodney Stuckey a year ago.
(That said, does David protest too much? Have there really been three other alleged promises? I know he’s trying to make light of how you can’t believe everything you hear, but I haven’t heard about any other promises.)
We’re behind a bit on our pre-draft coverage — earlier this week, A. Sherrod Blakely posted this list of players the Pistons plan on working out:
• Shan Foster, SG, Vanderbilt
• Omri Casspi, SF, Israel
• Bill Walker, SF, Kansas State
• Joe Crawford, SG, Kentucky
• Mike Green, PG, Butler
• D.J. White, PF, Indiana
• Joey Dorsey, PF, Memphis
• Courtney Lee, SG, Western Kentucky
• Trent Plaisted, C, BYU
• Giorgi Shermandini, C, the Republic of Georgia
• Kentrell Grandsberry, PF, South Florida
• Malik Hairston, SF, Oregon
Hat-tip to DBB reader Quick Darshan for emailing that over. After all the good things I heard about DJ White, it’s encouraging to see he’s on that list.
I also got an email from Israeli DBB reader Ohad, who was obviously excited to see the Pistons were talking to Casspi. I don’t read Hebrew, but I’m told this article discusses Casspi’s workout with the Pistons, saying that Michael Curry and Tony Ronzone ran the workouts while Joe Dumars looked on. Apparently Casspi has been on Detroit’s radar the last few years. I was intrigued, so I checked out his profile on Draft Express, which posted this scouting report in March:
A legit 6-9 combo forward, coach Sherf used him mostly as a small forward, but Omri often officiates as a power forward as well, as he proved in his previous outing against Hapoel Gilboa/Afula (scoring 20 points off the bench, by the way). He’s long, he’s well built and he’s also quick for his size. Actually, the biggest concerns about his ability to play small forward come from the defensive end, but he’s showing a bit better lateral quickness and aggressiveness, staying closer to the ball (he used to rely more on his length to defend perimeter guys, conceding them too much space in order to prevent them from slashing past him). This is one of the main areas that coach Sherf has been helping him out the most actually, and he wouldn’t be able to get minutes for the old-school conservative coach if he wasn’t producing for him on this end.
Offensively we’re seeing mostly a face-up player, very incisive with the ball in his hands, but also active playing off the ball. Casspi enjoys nice ball-handling skills, a solid first step, and excellent footwork. He can attack both ways, and uses his body really well to work his way towards the basket. He’s an aggressive player with great body control, who doesn’t fear contact at all. Against Real Madrid, he beat one of the best perimeter defenders in the Old Continent, Charles Smith, off the dribble, attacking him in a pure one-on-one situation with his left hand. Without the ball, Casspi actively cuts, often in back-door fashion, delivering mostly moves towards the basket. Following this trend (of activity without the ball and getting near the rim), he also emerges willing to clean the offensive boards looking for second-chance points, always trying to cash in off his superior size.
He sounds like he has some promise, but for a guy who turns 20 years old in a couple of weeks, he may be more of a project than an immediate answer for the backup small forward spot. I also don’t know if this is someone the Pistons are considering with their first-round pick or perhaps someone they hope falls to them in the second. Bear in mind, the Pistons have a glut of future second-round picks, so they could easily package a couple of those together if they’d like to move up from their current 59th spot in the second round this year.
It’s that time of the year. From DraftExpress:
D.J. White may [have] a promise from the Detroit Pistons at the end of the first round, according to sources with ties to the player. The Pistons have the 29th overall pick and may like the way White’s length and toughness fit into their team’s overall culture. They have not been shy in the past about identifying players they like early on and being aggressive pursuing them—having made a promise to draft Rodney Stuckey with the 15th overall pick right around this time last year, and reportedly also giving DeVon Hardin assurances they would select him in the late first round before he decided to return to school. They did the same exact thing with Jason Maxiell a few years back, which caused him to pull out of the NBA pre-draft camp after just one day, despite then being projected as a 2nd round pick.
White has scheduled many workouts with NBA teams for the weeks leading up to draft, which is not unusual even for players like Stuckey or Maxiell if year’s past is any indication. He will not be playing in the NBA pre-draft camp, which is a pretty good sign that he feels comfortable with where he is projected to be drafted.
(Thanks to DBB reader John for the tip!) To be completely honest, I only pay attention to college hoops during March Madness and the weeks preceding the NBA’s draft, but the name DJ White did ring a bell. After hitting up Google, I realized why: our own LawyerBoy was talking up White in the comments just a couple of weeks ago:
I’d like to take a long look at D.J. White who I’ve followed religious as an IU alum since he first set foot in Assembly Hall for Indiana University. As a five-star prospect (#15 overall in 2004 for Rivals.com) I was disappointed a lot in D.J. and thought he was inconsistent for the first three years of his career. This year however, the guy absolutely blew me away. I had no faith in him for this year and he wasn’t just good this year, he was DOMINANT during a tumultuous season where he got his 3rd head coach of his IU career mid-season! He has a weird game at about 6′8 245, but he’s like Maxiell minus the freakish athleticism (read: leaping ability & explosiveness) and plus a little more offensive savvy with his back to the basket. White plays his behind off on every single play on both sides. D.J. is incredibly strong and he has a nice midrange jumper with a full compliment of post moves. He could be a useful guy in the league, he may not be.
I also pinged former FanHouse colleague PostmanR (who’s not only an Indiana alum but also one of the co-founders of Hoosier hoops blog Inside the Hall) for his take:
He finally reached his potential this year — he was a bear and real consistent. Former McDonalds All-American, averaged a double-double, was Big Ten player of the year. Skill-wise, he’s a good rebounder, he’s got kind of a turn around hook that he can work well but I wouldn’t go so far as to call him “athletic” — he was a bit of klutz at times. He’s a high character guy, had to wade through all the bullshit with the coaching changes and whatnot. I mean, in the late first round, it’s not easy to get an impact guy but you’re getting a consistent hard-worker who can play in a system.
So there we go. I’m sure the Pistons will deny any talk about a promise … just like they did last year when the same type of rumor surfaced involving Rodney Stuckey. It’ll be interesting to see if this rumor gains legs.
For what it’s worth, Chad Ford’s latest mock draft has the Pistons taking Nathan Jawai out of Australia. If Ford eventually validates the White rumor, it’ll be hard to ignore given his cozy relationship with Joe Dumars (though it’d be equally understanding if Dumars played this close to the vest in fear of losing White).
Update: DBB reader Taco John has another glowing review in the comments. Without having seen a single minute of game tape on him, you guys have me sold.
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