Tennessee basketball point guard Zakai Zeigler will play with the Detroit Pistons in the 2025 NBA Summer League, according to a report from ESPN's Jonathan Givony.
He'll likely play with former Tennessee guard Chaz Lanier during summer league. The Pistons selected Lanier with the No. 37 overall pick in the second round of the 2025 NBA Draft on Thursday night.
Zeigler was named the SEC Defensive Player of the Year as a senior for the second consecutive season to round out his decorated four-year run with the Vols. He was also named to the All-SEC First Team and the All-SEC Defensive Team to become the first four-time All-Defensive Team selection in SEC basketball history. He's the third multiple-time SEC Defensive Player of the Year.
Texas A&M's Robert Williams, Mississippi State's Jarvis Varnado and Zeigler are the only players to win SEC DPOY multiple times. Zeigler and Varnado are the only players to win it outright multiple times, as Williams shared one.
Zeigler averaged 13.1 points, 7.5 assists, 3.0 rebounds and 1.9 steals per game during the regular season. He averaged 14.1 points, 7.0 assists, 2.6 rebounds and 2.1 steals during SEC play, while shooting 34.5% from three.
The Long Island, New York native scored double-digit points in 24 of 30 games, scoring 13-plus in 18 of them, 16-plus in 12 and 20-plus in two. Zeigler dished out at least six assists in 25 contests, with eight-plus in 15, 10-plus in four and a career-high 15 in two.
"If you really know his background and where he is, you can't help but love him in more ways than you can imagine," Rick Barnes said about Zeigler after this past Saturday's win over South Carolina on senior day. "Because what he has been able to do for his family, and that's where the NIL has been a wonderful thing. He has done so much to make it easier and better for his family. It's just gonna be different, because he's been a guy that every day in practice, I knew what he was gonna do for us."
Zeigler was one of five finalists for the Bob Cousy Award, which is given annually to the best point guard in the country. He was also named an All-America Honorable Mention by College Hoops Today and was on the Naismith Trophy Midseason Team, the USBWA Oscar Robertson Trophy Midseason Watch List and on the Naismith Defensive Player of the Year Watch List for the third year in a row.