Sekou Doumbouya, Donta Hall assigned to Grand Rapids Drive

The Detroit Pistons have assigned Sekou Doumbouya and Donta Hall to the Grand Rapids Drive, the team announced Friday.

After a hot start to the season after being called up by the Pistons, the 19-year-old rookie has seen his production plummet. The year 2020 saw Doumbouya score in double figures in eight of nine games culminating in a career-high 24 point outing against the Celtics in a surprise Pistons victory.

In the 20 games since that 24-point showing, however, Sekou is averaging just 5.4 points per game on 29.2% shooting. He’s played primarily power forward and is grabbing only 3.4 rebounds per game with 0.5 assists in the past 20, and has scored in double figures just once.

There is no indication the move is being made to boost his confidence as Dwane Casey told reporters after the assignment was announced that both Doumbouya and Hall would go back and forth between Grand Rapids and Detroit for the rest of the season.

Hall, on his second 10-day contract with the Pistons, has played in three games and is averaging 1.7 points and 3.7 rebounds in 13.7 minutes per game.

Doumbouya started the year with the Drive and played well enough that it seemed like it’d be better for him to learn with his NBA teammates in Detroit than continue to dominate in the G League.

It’s not that he was too good for the G League, but more that scoring was coming easily enough that it might have allowed him to form some bad habits that it’d be difficult to coach out of him. Better that he learned that those moves that worked against G League opponents weren’t going to fly on the big stage.

I think it’s been proven definitively that Doumbouya is finding things much more difficult in the NBA and that might be a good thing. I wouldn’t mind, however, him going down and having a little fun seeing the ball go in the basket again.