For a time, Luke Kennard stood as a symbol of everything wrong with the Detroit Pistons franchise.
It did not take long for fans to see that the prospect Detroit passed over with the 12th pick –Donovan Mitchell – was a budding star, and that Kennard was not.
Mitchell’s emergence during the 2017-18 season underscored a decade of Detroit incompetence. Watching the rookie Mitchell lead the Utah Jazz to the fifth seed in the Western Conference made Pistons fans painfully aware that another missed opportunity in the draft meant Detroit would continue its slow march on the treadmill of mediocrity.