Well, probably not. The fire needs to be hot and it needs to be spit, and Delon Wright does neither. He also is not a rapper. Then again, neither is Dame D.O.L.L.A., but I think we allow from the amount of punctuation used. And you really don’t need Wright to be that… well, I’m not going to state that having a basketball player who twilights as a rapping dragon or a nostalgia-driven meme, depending on how meta you want to go with the joke, is a bad thing. So look, Delon doesn’t spit hot fire, he doesn’t spell or pronounce his name like D-y-l-a-n, but what he does bring are multi-categorical contributions (say that three times fast), and while many would point to the return of Derrick Rose as a death knell for both Wright’s minutes and overall production output, I’m not necessarily certain that’s true and I aim to think about this concept aloud. Join me after the jump?
| Summary | MIN | PTS | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TOV |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-21 | 27.1 | 9.0 | 4.5 | 4.6 | 1.2 | 0.6 | 1.1 |
| 2019-20 | 21.5 | 6.9 | 3.8 | 3.3 | 1.2 | 0.3 | 1.0 |
| Career | 20.3 | 7.4 | 3.2 | 3.0 | 1.0 | 0.4 | 1.0 |
So as a preemptive anchor of thought (nautical terms ftw), this shouldn’t be the first time you’ve heard about Delon Wright, nor is this probably the first time you’ve come across content piquing your interest about Delon Wright in the vast world wide web. Generally available in the majority of leagues, he’s always been this sort of average-ish rotational backcourt piece that historically has been a great fill-in for roster-affecting injuries, both for his real NBA teams and fantasy rosters.
His 26 games last season with the Grizzlies provided us with a glimpse of his unspectacular but positive collection of numbers ranging from averaging a little bit over 10 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists, and a steal-and-a-half a game, all in about 30 minutes of floor time. Now in 2021 and on the Pistons, there’s a bit of a positive wrinkle here to think about, as Dwane Casey has long time been a fan of versatile guards, including Kyle Lowry, or someone a bit closer to Wright’s peer group, say a Reggie Jackson. Both were solid fantasy contributors, contextually, under Casey’s management, and I don’t see any reason why that trend can’t continue here.
And while it’d be easy for me to point out that Wright is already putting up numbers that should not be on the waivers based on the wide array of categories he’s contributing to, the most valid counterargument and what I alluded to earlier is the Derrick Rose factor. Now, I won’t go into projecting the nature of Rose’s health, I think it’s been well established what his value is and the risks that come with it, and while any time Rose is in the lineup healthy translates to fewer minutes to share, there are signs here that point to Wright being the exception. Since Rose came back, Wright is still averaging over 30 minutes, and while this is an aspect you should keep an eye on moving forward, I have no doubt that even with a healthy Rose, load management or a potential trade are a number of other factors that could continue leading to Wright’s emergence as a roster piece and not just a roster weekly pick-up.
Jay is a longtime Razzball everything consumes an egregious amount of Makers Mark as a vehicle to gain wisdom and augment his natural glow. Living in the D.C. area, he also likes spending time visiting the local parks and feeding lettuce to any turtles he encounters, including Mitch McConnell. You can follow him @jaywrong.
