A player with First State ties was once again a first-round NBA draft choice on Thursday night.
New Castle resident Jalen Duren was chosen 13th overall by the Charlotte Hornets but later landed with the Detroit Pistons in a trade that also involved the New York Knicks.
That’s no less confusing than the 6-foot-10 center Duren’s scholastic background.
After attending Gunning Bedford Middle School in North St. Georges and already sprouting to 6-7, Duren attended his first two years of high school at Philadelphia’s Roman Catholic. He was already on the nationally recognized, Philadelphia-based Team Final AAU squad.
As a junior, Duren then attended Monteverde Academy in Florida, where he continued to rate among the nation’s top college prospects. He was able to reclassify to the Class of 2021 and announced last summer at the Grail Sports Complex in Elsmere that he’d attend Memphis as a college freshman.
WHO IS JALEN DUREN? Pistons’ first-round pick sized up
There, with his previous residence of Sharon Hill, Pennsylvania, listed as his hometown, Duren was American Athletic Conference Rookie of the Year and first-team all-league while averaging 12.0 points and 8.1 rebounds per game with 61 blocked shots.
Now he’ll begin his NBA career in Detroit, though Duren won’t even turn 19 until Nov. 18.
“Elite physical gifts and he’s the youngest player in the draft,” Pistons GM Troy Weaver told the Detroit Free Press Thursday night about Duren.
“Tremendous upside, tremendous young man. Elite physical gifts and elite hands. Big-time rebounder, rim protector. Puts pressure on the basket. He just brings a physicality and presence and size that we were looking for.”
Last summer, Wilmington resident and St. Georges Vo-Tech graduate Nah’Shon “Bizzy Bones” Hyland, a guard from VCU, was chosen in the first round, 26th overall, by the Denver Nuggets.
He was the third first-round NBA pick who’d played high school basketball in Delaware, joining Newark’s Terrence Stansbury, who was picked 15th overall out of Temple in 1984 by Dallas, and Salesianum graduate Donte DiVincenzo, the 17th selection in 2018 by Milwaukee from NCAA champ Villanova. DiVincenzo is now with the Sacramento Kings.
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