mlive.com wrote:Detroit Pistons and Arnett Moultrie: Could they be a prearranged NBA Draft marriage?The Detroit Pistons have admitted to hosting an individual workout for just one player projected to go in the first round of the NBA Draft, and when Arnett Moultrie confounded some at the NBA Draft Combine by declining to participate in drills which seemed tailored to his athleticism, it came with some attendant suspicion of a tacit promise from a team with a good draft position to take him.The Pistons pick No. 9 in the June 28 draft, and while most projections have Moultrie going a bit later than that – based loosely on penalizing him for balking at the combine drills – the 6-10 ¾, 233-pounder from Mississippi State was the only likely first-rounder among 15 players the Pistons listed Friday as having worked out for the team.
Whatever suspicions Moultrie has raised, they doesn't exist within his own mind, where his self-vision is clear.
“I'm a top-10 talent, for sure,” he said, when asked where he should be drafted. “Anywhere from six to 10.”
He insists is a power forward, not a center, and views teams which think otherwise as suspiciously as some teams view him, though he says he can play some center “if needed.”
“I'm a good defender,” Moultrie said. “I'm a smart defender. I can guard three positions, three through five.”
And when he projects himself on an NBA roster, the ideal spot would be with the Miami Heat, “but they have the 27th pick,” Moultrie said.
“Detroit is a perfect fit,” he said. “I know that they need a big. They're looking for an athletic big to play above the rim, to play alongside Greg Monroe. He's more of a skilled four and I bring my energy when I'm on the floor, blocking shots and rebounding the basketball.
“I'd fit in very really well, just come in as a role player, because he's already established himself with that team. They have a lot of good guards that can score the ball, so I wouldn't come in and worry about scoring. I'd come in as a role player and do all the dirty work.”
Moultrie said the Pistons talk regularly with his agent, Derek Lafayette, and said he thinks he's “in the mix at the No. 9 spot for them.”
Moultrie is the already largely forgotten answer to an obscure trivia question, in a season when Kentucky's plethora of impending first-round draft picks powered the Wildcats to a national championship: Who led the Southeastern Conference in rebounding?
With 10.5 per game, it was Moultrie.
“Most people would probably think it was Anthony Davis,” he said, referring to the Kentucky star expected to go No. 1 to New Orleans.
Moultrie got the bulk of the big-man minutes in his only season with a smallish Mississippi State team after two seasons at Texas-El Paso, where he was used more as a swingman and pick-and-pop specialist, but transferred and sat out a season after head coach Tony Barbie left UTEP for Auburn.
Moultrie was criticized for a late-February interview, with Mississippi State in the midst of a five-game losing streak, in which he said his teammates had “agendas” and said he doubted the Bulldogs would turn around their season.
Mississippi State won its last two regular-season games, then lost in the first round of the SEC tournament and the National Invitation Tournament.
Moultrie said his remarks come up frequently in interviews with NBA teams, “because, of course, the media took it the wrong way and said I was throwing my team up under the bus. But I felt like I didn't. I felt it was something that needed to be said to try to get us going and get us back on track.”
Whether the Pistons reach for Moultrie at No. 9, over some of the other big men likely to be available, is questionable. But they aren't the only top-10 team intrigued. Moultrie also has worked out, or has workouts planned, with Golden State, Toronto and Sacramento.
Both of Moultrie's college teams switched out ball screens at all but the center positions, so the NBA's variety of pick-and-rolls should be a hazard he can handle. He has proven he can defend stretch fours, and insists he can guard NBA wings, too.
For all that talent, he still is projected as mid-teens to late-teens in the first round.
“I'm definitely the sleeper of the draft,” Moultrie said. “But that's fine, they can sleep on me. I've been a sleeper all my life.”
