Like a lot of rookies on draft night, Saddiq Bey wasn't really sure what to do when the team that drafted him wasn't the team that wanted him.
The Nets selected Bey 19th overall, with an agreement in place to trade him to the Pistons. Per NBA rules, Bey was supposed to pull on a Nets hat when the pick was announced.
"I still put the Pistons hat on," Bey smiled later. "I don’t know if that was allowed, but I put it on anyway."
Bey was pumped to be heading to Detroit. It's a city that reminds him of the stops on his path to the NBA, from Washington DC to Philadelphia, where he starred at Villanova.
"I think of Detroit as blue collar, similar to the areas that I grew up in and played," Bey said. "Hard-working at the ground level, everything was earned. That’s what I see when I think of Detroit."
And here's what a number of GM's around the NBA were thinking when Detroit landed Bey deep in the first round: good pick.
In NBA.com's GM survey ahead of the 2020-21 season, Bey got the second most votes for 'biggest steal' of the draft. Leading the way was Iowa State point guard Tyrese Haliburton, who went 12th overall to Sacramento.
Obi Toppin, who went eighth overall to New York, Kira Lewis, 13th overall to New Orleans, and Tyrese Maxey, 21st overall to Philadelphia, were tied for third.
Bey can do a lot, and a lot of the things that matter in today's NBA. He's long, he's athletic and he shot over 45 percent from three last season at Villanova when he won the Julius Erving Award as the best small forward in the country.
It didn't take him long to impress Blake Griffin, who praised Bey for having "one of the most complete games I’ve seen, especially for a rookie" after inviting him to LA for a few days of workouts last month.
"He shoots the ball really, really well, thinks the game really well, is always trying to be in the right spot. And then defensively he can sit down and guard multiple positions. So I love his game," Griffin said later in an interview with Fox Sports Detroit.
Bey has averaged 5.3 points off the bench in Detroit's first three preseason games. That will likely be his role to start the season. And while most of the focus for now is on seventh overall pick Killian Hayes, don't be surprised if Bey's the rookie we're talking about by the end of the year.
"I’m a real loyal guy, so I feel like whoever believes in me, I want to make them proud and give them my full effort because I love this game so much," he told FSD. "So for those guys that believe in me, I’m going to try to be the best I can be and contribute to the organization as much as possible."
Other highlights from the GM survey:
- The Lakers are the favorite to win it all, with 81 percent of the votes.
- Giannis Antetokounmpo is the favorite to win MVP, with 32 percent of the vote. Luka Doncic is second.
- The top four teams in the East: Milwaukee, Brooklyn, Miami, Boston.
- The Pistons' signing of Jerami Grant was the third most surprising move of the offseason, after Gordon Hayward to Charlotte and the John Wall-Russell Westbrook trade.