Jodie Meeks was brought in to knock down shots in Detroit — Stan Van Gundy likes the three ball and last season the Pistons shot just 32.1 percent from three as a team (only the Sixers were worse). Meeks took more than five threes a game last season for the Lakers and hit 40 percent of them.
Meeks also wants to bring some veteran leadership and work ethic to the Pistons — things he said he learned from a year playing with Kobe Bryant.
Meeks told his Kobe story speaking with Perry Farrell of the Detroit Free Press.
“Practice was at 11, we had to be there at 10. Well, I wanted to get there at 10,” Meeks said. “He was already there fully dressed and sweating. I got to the locker room at 9:30, got on the court at 10, and he had been there an hour and a half working on stuff.
“I was like, ‘Man, it is true.’ This guy is working like this and at the time he was 34 years old. He felt like he still had a lot to prove, and he was still trying to prove people wrong. I was like, ‘Man, great player....’
“No matter if he was sick or hurt or injured, he never made excuses. He just kept working hard. He got better, and you see where he’s at.”
Everyone who has played with Kobe has stories like that. Guys like LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony have those kinds of stories from the 2008 Beijing Olympics. They are legend around the league.
What Meeks said he wants to do is bring that kind of effort and that kind of work ethic to the Pistons and let their young stars — Andre Drummond, Greg Monroe and others — see it and learn from it.
If Meeks can be that kind of leader on a young team, he will be bringing a lot more than threes to the party.