Pistons’ Daniss Jenkins is one of the NBA’s coolest stories originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Daniss Jenkins didn’t travel the journey of a basketball phenom to reach this point.
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But the winding road led him to a pivotal role for the Eastern Conference’s top-seeded Detroit Pistons anyway. And in the first two wins over the Cleveland Cavaliers in the East semifinal, Jenkins has been fantastic.
There are few cooler stories in the entire league this year.
Jenkins didn’t even have a recruiting profile on 247Sports when he was in high school.
Pacific, which plays in the D-I West Coast Conference, took a chance on him. He had to step back from there to the junior college level and Odessa College.
He parlayed his play at Odessa to a year at Iona for Rick Pitino, and then he followed Pitino to St. John’s.
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Jenkins was second-team All-Big East with the Johnnies, but he also headed to the professional ranks at 22 years old, ancient in NBA Draft consideration.
No one picked him, and he got just seven NBA games in the 2024-25 season with Detroit.
This season, though, Jenkins turned into a crucial guard off the bench.
Rarely has that been more apparent than Thursday night against the Cavs.
Jenkins drilled a tough 3-pointer at the halftime buzzer. He finished with 14 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists. And he even was part of the Pistons’ closing lineup.
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He’s one of those guys you can’t help but root for. The Pistons have highly touted players leading the way, former top recruits like Cade Cunningham and Tobias Harris.
But then they’ve got guys like the journeyman Jenkins and the former D-III star Duncan Robinson.
It all has combined for a special season so far. If Jenkins keeps contributing like this, there might be even more special moments in the near future for Detroit.
