Best Draft Pick In Detroit Pistons History

One of the NBA’s original eight teams, the Pistons have added a number of talented guards and big men to their franchise over the last eight decades, whether they are located in Fort Wayne or in Detroit. 

Dave Bing, the second overall pick in the 1966 NBA Draft out of Syracuse, won Rookie of the Year, led the league in scoring in his second season with 27.1 points per game, and earned seven All-Star selections, becoming the Pistons' first true superstar during his nine seasons in Detroit. A Hall of Famer, a two-time All-NBA First Team selection, and one of the more underappreciated guards of his era, Bing unfortunately never brought a championship to Detroit

Four years later, the Pistons used the first overall pick on Bob Lanier, a 6'11" center out of St. Bonaventure. Lanier rewarded the Pistons for taking a chance on him despite entering the league banged up and overweight, averaging 22.7 points and 11.8 rebounds over ten seasons, earning eight All-Star selections and an All-Star Game MVP. 

Enter Isiah Thomas. Selected second overall in the 1981 NBA Draft out of Indiana, where, as a nineteen-year-old sophomore, he had led the Hoosiers to the NCAA Championship and was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. Thomas arrived in Detroit to a franchise that had finished the previous season 21-61. 

While he may have stood just 6’1”, 180lbs, what Thomas may have lacked in size, he more than made up for it with heart, toughness, and basketball IQ. The driving force behind the culture of the "Bad Boys" Pistons, Thomas was famously known as "the baby-faced assassin."

In Thomas’s first season with the Pistons, he helped the team to an 18-game improvement in the win column. Averaging 17 points, 7.8 assists, and 2.1 steals, Thomas proved to be a driving force for the Pistons on both ends of the court, earning a spot in the All-Star Game as a rookie. 

Over the course of Thomas’s thirteen-year career, all with Detroit, Thomas averaged 19.2 points and 9.3 assists, made twelve All-Star teams, won five All-NBA honors, and led the assists league in 1985, earning a spot in the Hall of Fame. While the individual accolades were impressive, more importantly, he did what Bing and Lanier were unable to, he brought Detroit not just one championship, but two. Back-to-back titles in 1989 and 1990, earning Finals MVP in the second, Thomas cemented his place not just in Pistons history but in the conversation about the greatest point guards the game has ever produced.