RADIO
Every year there are breakout, bust, and lock players in fantasy basketball. Jake King-Finnen identifies one player for each category on the Detroit Pistons.
Welcome to a new series that we are debuting here at RotoBaller in order to start getting you ready for the 2022-2023 fantasy basketball season!
If you play fantasy football, you'll probably recognize the format here as we had a series of preseason NFL articles that followed the same outline. The idea here is to hone in several players from each team that we see as values for the upcoming season or that are possibly being drafted too high this preseason.
In this piece, you'll find a fantasy basketball breakout candidate, a fantasy basketball bust candidate, and a fantasy basketball lock (think steady production and being drafted correctly) for the Detroit Pistons based on early ADP for fantasy basketball drafts for the 2022-2023 season. It's easy to love this young Pistons team and key veteran additions are going to stabilize this exciting roster.
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Fantasy Basketball Breakout: Jalen Duren
Maybe not the name you'd expect here, but Jalen Duren is the Detroit Pistons big. He's 18-years old and although young bigs don't typically fare well their first few years, he surrounded by a supporting cast consisting of Kemba Walker, Bojan Bogdanovic, Cade Cunningham, and fellow rookie Jaden Ivey. Not to mention the help of a few more wing shooters like Saddiq Bey and Alec Burks, the consistency of Cory Joseph playing point with the second unit, all combined with the unobtrusive play style of the only returning frontcourt starter Isaiah Stewart creates a welcoming environment for an extremely young center. Duren's athleticism all but forces him into a heavy rebounder's role, but Detroit lacked that last season and is looking to embrace a player with just his skill-set. Mainly since it's acceptable that Isaiah Stewart doesn't want to spend all-game-every-game boxing out again. Duren possesses that incredible, unexplained ability to be bigger and stronger than the people around him, so rebounding comes more naturally since he has the height, frame, and strength to box out and track rebounds simultaneously.
This isn't saying Stewart struggled, the Pistons were one of the top teams at limiting opponent second chance points last year, so clearly something was going right in that department. However, the Pistons were also in the bottom third in fast break points and in the bottom third for both opponent offensive and defensive rebounds. Somewhat alarming as a young team, especially one that didn't win many games. The Pistons were bailed out by missed opportunities last season and their biggest issue was their inability to guard the paint. Size doesn't mean everything, but it can make up for a lot of things and watching team after team attack the Pistons lack of size was clearly noticeable enough to end up drafting a generational prospect with the 13th pick. The window, the door, the garage, heck, even the neighbors' doors are open for Jalen Duren to shine and indulge in the spacing he should have, it's just a matter of how long it takes him to get situated and create offense through his rebounding and defense.
The more Duren messes up, the more he will learn. There will be a learning curve, but with the injury to Marvin Bagley III potentially lingering, Duren's development will be boosted by the Pistons lack of resources. At the very least Duren's ability as a rebounder is unquestioned and if anything, it wouldn't hurt him to watch some old Dennis Rodman Pistons clips for more inspiration.
Fantasy Basketball Bust: Marvin Bagley III
No one likes piling on a dead horse, but it's not like this most recent injury was the deal-breaker here. Not that the Pistons were always firing on all cylinders, but without a doubt showed serious promise against some high-caliber opponents. Obviously, it wasn't all sparkles and ice cream, seeing how their record fared and that a chunk of their rotation will be considerably different this upcoming season. A major part of that change will be in their frontcourt now that Jalen Duren is already proving himself in the preseason. Even though Duren might need some time, simply putting him in the mix with other frontcourts is the best way to handle his current situation and development, especially now that Bagley is already expected to miss some time.
Bagley is likely to take the biggest hit since he was the initial pick-and-roll guy when healthy and it's only fair to say that with so more capable mouths to feed, there is little chance that Bagley somehow ends up with a primary role in the offense when he returns. Much of that will depend on how well Duren fares during the start of the regular season but the Pistons frontcourt competition is heavy and Bagley didn't prove himself when the timing was right. Now the timing is wrong and his back is more against the wall than it's ever been. Until he shows a drastic improvement in nearly every aspect he should be easy to avoid.
Fantasy Basketball Lock: Cade Cunningham
If Cade Cunningham could produce when his only relief was Jerami Grant, the improvement lies within the additions of Bogdanovic, Walker, Duren and Ivey. The Pistons are lacking depth and eventually that will catch up to them, but as long as Cunningham is running the first unit his stats are going to skyrocket. Jerami Grant was absorbing a lot of the Pistons usage last season and did more pulling than pushing when it came to his teammate’s stats. This is not to say that the Pistons had better options, because most of the time Grant was simply trying to finish the possession and had no other choice. But there lies the problem that Detroit's offense was generally stagnant last year outside of Cunningham and Grant.
He should retain ball-handling duties and might lose some of that to Kemba Walker, but Walker has been playing a passive guard lately in his most recent seasons so Cunningham should have the green light with plenty of support to help him even contend for some late-season awards like Most Improved Player.
Conclusion
Adding in players like Kemba Walker and Bojan Bogdanovic add that consistency needed to help reassure the young guys that it's ok to miss shots and make mistakes, just to not stray from where you thrive. Watching Bogdanovic and Walker miss shots is going to give the young guys the confidence that, they too, are allowed to miss shots, even if it costs them the game. Both those veterans have played in tough games and carried their weight for years, so you can assuming they'll be looking to force-feed rim-rollers like Duren and Hamidou Diallo, all while letting Cade Cunningham and Jaden Ivey have as much say as they want. Veterans like Walker and Bogdanovic aren't the type of guys to head to a young team to demand respect and usage. They know where they are in their careers and if anything, they are going to focus on themselves in an effort to help out the young guys. Despite the excitement of this new roster, they lack consistent shooting and it looks more and more like the offense will stem from two players directly, Cunningham and Bogdanovic, with Walker and Saddiq Bey playing the role as secondary options.
The frontcourt is going to depend on the durability and defense of Jalen Duren. Against the Grizzlies' Steven Adams he held his own, despite not knowing just how much effort Adams put into this game. Regardless, Duren held his own and wasn't pushed around despite giving up the size advantage. There's a bit a smoothness to his game that comes off slow and slightly sloppy, but he always seems in control of his body despite his slow movements. Preseason has been huge for Duren and if there's any way he can keep this momentum; his floor is still going to be statistically sound.
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