It promised to be a quiet night in a mostly uneventful draft for the Detroit Pistons. After about three hours the team still hadn’t made their one selection - slated for No. 42. Worse, fans were seeing some of the popular second round targets fall off the board in the 30s.
Not so fast. The quiet Pistons with a front office led by Ed Stefanski but missing several key players, and with a head coach on the job for less than a week had a surprise in store. Detroit traded two future second-round picks to the Philadelphia 76ers for Thomas and then used their own pick on Bruce Brown.