Nashua's Ebuka Okorie poses with NBA Commissioner Adam Silver after being drafted 17th overall by the Detroit Pistons Tuesday night in Brooklyn. (AP photo)

A decade ago, he scored 63 points in a Nashua Junior Biddy championship game.

Tuesday night at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, Ebuka Okorie did even better than that: He became the first New Hampshire basketball player to ever be selected in the first round of the NBA Draft, and the first Nashuan to be drafted by an NBA team, period.

Okorie who led the ACC in scoring as a Stanford University freshman, was picked 17th overall by the Detroit Pistons, who traded up from No. 21 to get him.

The Pistons dealt three second round picks to the Memphis Grizzlies, who had swapped picks with the Oklahoma City Thunder right before that. By rule the Thunder were announced as making the pick by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver because trades don’t become official until July 6. But this was who the Pistons wanted, and it’s their only pick of the draft.

“It’s everything I dreamed of,” Okorie told ABC’s Lisa Salters moments after he was selected. “Ever since I started playing basketball it’s been my goal to get here. To see it happen in real time, with my family and all my loved ones, it means the world to me.”

According to the Detroit Free Press, Pistons president Trajan Langdon said the team would take the best player available, or the top player on their board. They obviously felt Okorie was that player, and made the move to get him.

The night wrapped up – for now — an incredible year for the 19-year-old former Brewster Academy standout, who also played a couple of years at Cushing Academy. Okorie was originally set to go to Harvard and then de-committed in the fall of 2024 in order to go to Stanford instead. He averaged 23.2 points with 3.6 rebounds and 3.6 assists per game, shooting 46.5 percent from the field and 35.4 percent from 3-point range.

Okorie took two-thirds of his shots from two-point range, and has explosive speed off the dribble. At 6-2, he will be the smallest player on the Pistons’ roster.

But those in Detroit felt before the draft that Okorie would be a great pick.

“Okorie is someone I look at and I say this guy, wherever he goes will be like a shocker to the NBA,” Pistons media analyst Zariq Turner of the outlet Bullyball said before the draft, saying he was the prospect he liked the most. “He has a great feel for the game on the offensive end, and his playmaking is such a big, big, win for the Pistons. I think if you can get this guy at (No.) 21, you walk away from the draft really happy with what you did.”

Okorie is going to a winner, although the Pistons underachieved in the playoffs after finishing first overall in the Eastern Conference at 60-22. They rallied from a 3-1 series deficit to beat Orlando in the first round but were ousted by Cleveland, losing Game 7 at home.

Pistons president of basketball operations Trajan Langdon told the media he had been following Okorie, and also relied on info from now-former Brewster Academy coach Jason Smith.

“He’s a guy that we targeted in this process “he said. “I watched a lot of film on him and the whole second half of the season.”

Okorie was said to have impressed when the Pistons had him in for a pre-draft workout.Throughout the scouting and draft process, which included Okorie visiting Detroit for a workout earlier this month, Langdon found him to be of “high character” and a young man who was “very serious” about basketball.

“It’s awesome to be able to just go into my rookie season being able to learn from a guy like Cade (Cunningham), guy like Jalen Duren and just soak in all the information I can,” Okorie told the Detroit media. “Being drafted to a team that’s already competitive, it’s awesome. The whole goal of playing basketball is to win, win as much as you can. So to be able to already go to an organization that’s doing that at a high level is awesome.”

Ironically, Detroit was to pick as low as 28 before a deal at the trade deadline with Minnesota produced a pick swap that put them at 21 — within striking distance of getting the player they wanted.

That player was Ebuka Okorie. From New Hampshire.

“It means a lot really to be from New Hampshire, make it all the way to the NBA,” Okorie said at post draft press conference. “Like I said, just dream big, it doesn’t matter where you’re from, you can make it.”

History was made.

(Material from the Detroit News, Detroit Free Press, and MLive.com were used in this report.)