After the Sacremento Kings somewhat surprisingly took Willie Cauley-Stein, one of Emmanuel Mudiay and Justise Winslow would be available for the Pistons to draft despite both being projected as top 7 picks. Denver took Mudiay and that left the front office with the choice between Winslow and Stanley Johnson. They ended up taking Johnson and many felt this was the wrong selection. However, there are many reasons why it was the right selection.

(My background is much more college basketball than it is NBA. I will be using sites such as KenPom, hoop-math, and others as references for these stats.)

Johnson is probably the better shooter

Yes, Winslow had the higher 3P%, but that there seems to be a pretty strong consensus by most analysts that he isn't as strong of a shooter as traditional stats would indicate. First off he took just 110 3-point attempt in college (Johnson took 116) and made 46 of them giving him a 41.8%. The issue with this though is that this is a very small sample size and because 3-pointers are such high variance shots, it takes around 750 (!) attempts for a player's 3P% to stabilize. Here are some stats I took from hoop-math to get a closer look at shooting.

A few stats that important to look at are FG% on 2pt Jumpers, % assisted 3s, and even FT%. While it's not going to be as telling as something like a mid-range% would be, Johnson's 44.4% on 2pt Jumpers is a very good number especially considering just 20% of those were assisted. Winslow on the other hand has a frankly awful number at 26.9%.

The next stat is % of 3pt that were assisted. Why this is important is that it means that of Johnson 43 3-pointers, 8 were unassisted while just 3 of Winslow's 46 were unassisted. Part of this most likely has to do with the offensive system they were both playing in but also it shows that Johnson most likely attempted more shots off the dribble which would've hurt his 3P%.

The final stat is FT% which I'll let Kevin Pelton explain why this is important:

If you're looking to predict how well a player will shoot 3s in the NBA, it turns out college 3-point percentage isn't the best predictor. In fact, it barely even helps the prediction at all, which instead relies on free throw percentage and the percentage of a player's attempts that come from 3-point range.

While Winslow did shoot a slightly higher % of his shots from 3 than Johnson, Johnson shot over 10% better from the charity stripe than Winslow's 64.2%.

Finally, their shot charts from ShotAnalytics which agree with the notion that Johnson is mostly the better shooter away from the basket.

Alright, Pistons fans, do with this as you wish (via @ShotAnalytics): pic.twitter.com/51SXppPnyp

— Drew Hallett (@DrewCHallett) June 26, 2015

(Note: Johnson shot poorly in the paint and at the rim. Those are very real issues that will likely need to be addressed. From what I've seen and heard he tried to draw contact too often which resulted in bad, contested shots at the rim. However, the point is that if SVG is trying to recreate something similar to what his former Magic teams looked like, he wants stronger shooters on the wings.)

Offensive Roles and things

One issue with comparing Johnson and Winslow's efficiencies is that they had different roles within their own offenses. With his 108.0 ORtg, Johnson was Arizona's main offensive weapon and led the team in scoring, usage% (26.2%), and shot% (26.6%). Winslow with his 112.2 ORtg, on the other hand, was Duke's 3rd leading scorer, 2nd in usage% (22.6%), and was tied for 4th in shots% (22.5). Winslow was slightly better than Johnson in almost every efficiency stat but he benefited from both playing with a better offensive team and having a smaller role.

While Johnson played mostly at the 3 in college, Winslow played a lot of small-ball 4 which allowed him to take advantage of mismatches. Because Winslow played in a spread system, there was a much more room to operate and fewer help defenders in the paint. Arizona shot a solid percentage from 3 (36.0%) but they had so few guys that were good perimeter shooters that only 19.9% of their points came from 3's which ranked 338 of 351 in D1 (Duke was at 33.4% ranking 198th).

One interesting thought experiment is how would each player have fared in the other player's shoes? If Stanley Johnson could've played the small-ball 4 at Duke and Winslow at the 3 at Arizona with less spacing, how would their seasons have gone and how would they be viewed now?

Defense

Frankly, Winslow was one of the top defenders in college and that may translate very well to the NBA. While Johnson was/is no slouch, most would agree he didn't have as large of an impact as Justise. However, with that being said one area where Johnson may have the edge is size. Johnson measured in 0.5 inches taller than Winslow in socks, 20 lbs heavier, with a 1.25 inch longer wingspan, but a 2.5 inch shorter standing reach. With his (slightly) better size Johnson may be better equipped to guard larger small forwards than Winslow would have. Many compared Winslow to Jimmy Butler but Butler came in at 6' 6" w/o shoes and 6' 7.75" in them. Detroit already has a wing defender in Kentavious Caldwell-Pope that can defend some small forwards. With Johnson's large frame he may even allow the Pistons to go very small with Johnson defending 4's and being a mismatch on offense. I'm not saying he's Draymond Green, he's not. He's nowhere near the passer and hasn't proved himself as a defender at the NBA level to be given that comparison yet but he may end up as an occasional small-ball 4 that Winslow likely wouldn't be able to.

Overall

I'm happy with the pick of Stanley Johnson. I would've also been happy with the pick of Justise Winslow. I trust the coaching staff and scouting to make the best decision for the team going forward. They've seen more of Winslow and Johnson than almost all of us and were able to scout certain things they've wanted to see during the workouts they held. Johnson likely isn't going to be a great shooter as SVG has said they are going to tweak his mechanics, but there's a fair amount of evidence that would indicate he's better than Winslow. Winslow very well may be the better driver at the moment but that's an area that may not be as coveted by SVG and it's an area that Johnson could improve at with his decision-making.