Detroit Pistons: Saddiq Bey has earned Rookie of the Year votes

The Detroit Pistons had a 2020 NBA draft night to remember, introducing their new general manager Troy Weaver to the basketball world. They made the chalk pick at No. 7, selecting Killian Hayes, and at 16 (a draft pick they had acquired via the Houston Rockets earlier that week) they selected Isaiah Stewart.

Then they made a stunning draft night trade, sending Luke Kennard to the LA Clippers as part of a three-team deal involving the Brooklyn Nets, and they received the 19th pick in return. They used that pick to draft Saddiq Bey out of Villanova.

The Detroit Pistons had a massive win in November’s NBA draft, and Saddiq Bey has proven to be the best of the crop so far this season.

It seemed like an incredibly aggressive move for a fledgling general manager to make, sending a proven NBA player in Luke Kennard elsewhere for a mid-to-late first-round pick, but that’s Troy Weaver. For that matter, stringing together a bunch of aggressive moves that pan out almost perfectly is just about the best way to start off a rebuild, and that’s exactly how things have played out for Weaver and his Pistons.

Hayes got hurt just seven games into his NBA career and missed the next 40 games with a torn labrum, but he’s shown why he was seen as a top prospect since returning to action. Stewart has immediately become a fan favorite thanks to his Bad Boys-esque energy and intensity, and he’s turning into a stretch big thanks to a surprisingly lethal jump shot.

Best of all, Saddiq Bey is justifying the faith Weaver placed in him by making an audacious move on draft night to secure the ability to pick him.

Before the season began, Blake Griffin stated that Bey was one of the most complete rookies he’d ever seen, thanks to offseason workouts together in Los Angeles. It seemed like lip service, given that the two were teammates with the Detroit Pistons at the time, but we’ve quickly seen that Bey does indeed have a maturity to his game and advanced skill set unusual in a rookie.

Although LaMelo Ball and Anthony Edwards have deservedly gotten most of the rookie buzz this season, Bey has been getting harder to ignore every night that goes by. In fact, the Pistons had a 7 PM EST start against the Cleveland Cavaliers earlier this week, half an hour before any other team started. That meant the NBA world had their eyes trained on this meaningless basketball game between these two lottery-bound teams, at least for 30 minutes before the real games began.