DePaul Professional Athletes

DePaul's most visible NBA representative right now isn't on a marquee franchise — but Paul Reed is making sure nobody overlooks what he's doing in Detroit.

The Pistons big man had his best outing of the young season Saturday night, pouring in 19 points and hauling down 11 rebounds in just 26 minutes as Detroit routed Miami 128-111. That double-double came with four assists and a +4 plus-minus — solid production, but the context matters: Reed delivered it in a blowout that had Detroit looking like a team trending in the right direction.

The more telling performance may have come Tuesday, when the Pistons knocked off the defending-champion Celtics 121-113. Reed logged only 16 minutes in that one — the kind of spot role that often gets lost in a headline win — but finished a gleaming +12, chipping in 6 points, 6 rebounds, and a steal. When a team beats Boston in October and a DePaul alum is among its most efficient players on the floor, that's worth noting.

Through the first week of the season, Reed has shown the energy and versatility that made him a useful piece in Philadelphia before the move to Detroit. He's not the focal point of the Pistons' offense — nor should he be — but his ability to affect the game in short bursts, defend, rebound, and keep the ball moving (6 assists across two games) gives Detroit's coaching staff a genuine rotation piece to lean on.

The rest of the Blue Demons' NBA contingent is scattered across the league. Javon Freeman-Liberty is on the Raptors' roster, Max Strus landed with the Clippers after his time in Cleveland, and David Jones is with San Antonio's young Spurs core. Javan Johnson is with Golden State. None generated stat lines in the research window, but the sheer breadth of DePaul alumni in NBA rotations speaks to the program's quiet pipeline into professional basketball.

For now, Reed is carrying the flag. If he sustains this level of play — impactful in limited minutes, a plus defender, and capable of erupting for nearly 20 on a given night — he'll be a name Blue Demons fans in Chicago will be tracking closely all season long. Detroit is rebuilding, but Reed looks like he belongs in the conversation about what this team can become.

Max Strus had barely laced up his Clippers uniform before the season unraveled on him.

The DePaul product suffered a partial tear of the plantar fascia in his right foot during Los Angeles' preseason opener against the Golden State Warriors on Sunday, Oct. 4, exiting in the first quarter after being spotted limping before a timeout. The Clippers confirmed the diagnosis shortly after, with Strus set to be re-evaluated in four weeks — a timeline that rules him out for the start of the 2026-27 regular season.

The injury lands at the worst possible moment. Strus arrived in Los Angeles as a newly acquired piece expected to provide perimeter shooting and versatility for a Clippers roster already navigating significant health concerns. Brandon Ingram — the team's top returning option — was already slated to miss the season's opening stretch, and Los Angeles was already carrying four rotation players on the shelf before Strus went down. The foot injury adds a fifth name to what has become a genuinely alarming list before a regular-season game has been played.

For DePaul fans, it's a tough watch. Strus, 30, built his NBA career the hard way — undrafted out of DePaul in 2019, bouncing through the G League before carving out a real role with the Miami Heat and then landing a significant contract. He's the kind of alumnus the Blue Demon faithful point to as proof of the program's NBA ceiling. Seeing him hobble off in a preseason game in Hawaii before he could play a meaningful minute for his new team is a gut punch.

The silver lining, if there is one, is that a plantar fascia partial tear — rather than a complete rupture — carries a more manageable recovery window. A four-week re-evaluation suggests the Clippers are cautiously optimistic about keeping his absence measured in weeks rather than months. Still, plantar fascia injuries are notoriously unpredictable, and a player returning too soon risks compounding the damage.

In the meantime, the Clippers' already thin perimeter depth will be tested from night one, with younger options like Gradey Dick potentially stepping into expanded roles to compensate. For Strus, the focus now shifts entirely to getting healthy — and finding a way to make his Clippers debut count once he does.