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The Detroit Pistons swung a trade with the Pelicans to take the draft rights of Jordan Bone, junior point guard out of Tennessee. It’s unclear what compensation Detroit sent New Orlean’s way.
Bone is lightning quick and liked to push the pace whenever possible on a somewhat sluggish Tennessee team. He’s also, to put it bluntly, an athletic freak.
Jay Bilas spoke absolute truth when he said Jordan Bone is one of the best athletes in this draft. Maybe even the best athlete not named Zion.
— Wes Rucker (@wesrucker247) June 21, 2019
If you doubt that, just look at Bone’s workout numbers. Absolute freak athletically.
Bone had the best standing vertical leap of any player in the NBA combine (36 inches), the second best max vertical leap (42.5 inches), the best shuttle rune (2.78 seconds), the best lane agility time (9.97 seconds) and the fourth-best three quarter sprint (3.08 seconds).
Athleticism only counts for so much, though, and it took a while for Bone to break out in Tennessee. After two lackluster seasons, Bones took the reigns of the Volunteer offense and, quite literally, ran with it.
He averaged 13.5 points, 5.8 assists and 2 turnovers and earned second team All-SEC honors. But he is relatively inefficient with his shot, hitting only 46.5% overall and 35.5% from 3. He is, essentially, a next generation version of Ish Smith with bonkers athleticism. A jitterbug in search of enough offensive consistency to stay in the league.
We know that Dwane Casey loved Ish, especially as a player who could push the pace off the bench. It looks like he has a future version to groom.