Pistons fans got a pretty good snap shot of Simone Fontecchio through the 16 games he played for them after being acquired at the February trade deadline and before a toe injury ended his season in mid-March. They didn’t see nearly as much of the other significant young veteran picked up at that time – and what they did see of Quentin Grimes wasn’t close to an accurate depiction of the player the Pistons believe they’ve added.
At his best, Grimes – who just turned 24 last week – gives the Pistons a high-level 3-and-D player who exudes toughness and selflessness. There isn’t a better testament to Grimes’ embodiment of those traits than the fact he quickly earned the trust of Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau, who elevated Grimes to New York’s starting lineup as a 22-year-old in his second NBA season for a playoff team.
When the Pistons were doing their due diligence on Marcus Sasser ahead of the 2023 NBA draft, his college coach at the University of Houston, Kelvin Sampson, told them that Sasser had the strongest work ethic of any of his past players there except one – Grimes.
Grimes only played a handful of games with the Pistons – after he was the key return in a deal that shipped veteran scorers Bojan Bogdanovic and Alec Burks to New York – due to a knee sprain incurred while still with the Knicks in late January. But on a roster where the Pistons are looking to stock the wings with strong shooters and defenders to play off of Cade Cunningham, Grimes figures to arrive at training camp with every opportunity to lock down a key role.
DID YOU KNOW? Grimes is one of three Pistons guards who came through the ranks at roughly the same time in Texas along with Cade Cunningham and Marcus Sasser. Grimes was a five-star recruit, the No. 8 prospect in the high school class of 2018 according to the recruiting service consensus index. He chose Kansas over offers from the usual smorgasbord of marquee programs after visiting Kentucky, Marquette, Oklahoma and Texas. Grimes had a splashy college debut, scoring 21 points and hitting 6 of 10 from the 3-point arc, to lead No. 1 Kansas to a 92-87 win over Michigan State in the Champions Classic. After starting all 36 games as a freshman at Kansas, Grimes went through the NBA draft process but pulled out before the deadline. With a scholarship squeeze on at Kansas, Grimes transferred near his hometown, to Houston, for the 2019-20 season. Grimes spent two seasons at Houston, overlapping Sasser’s time with the Cougars for both years, before declaring for the 2021 NBA draft. Grimes led Houston in scoring as a junior at 17.8 points a game for a team that reached the Final Four, losing to eventual champion Baylor in the national semifinal. Grimes was second on the team in rebounding (5.7 per game) and tied Sasser to lead in steals at 1.4 per game.
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