I never knew being wrong could feel so right. It’s been no secret that the Detroit Pistons have been shopping Andre Drummond for some time now. He had been linked to many teams in the past several weeks, but none seemed willing to offer up the future assets the Pistons felt were worthy of Drummond’s gaudy numbers. His contract was bloated, his effort was questionable, and his 2020-21 player option effectively held the Pistons (as well as Drummond’s trade suitors) hostage. These are just some of the reasons why I was worried (more like terrified) the Pistons would be unable to move Drummond at the trade deadline, and would stubbornly clinging to the false notion that “we can’t just trade him for nothing”. But they proved me wrong.

The Cleveland Cavaliers offered next-to-nothing for Andre Drummond. The Detroit Pistons said, “we’ll take it!” 

Smart move. Handshakes all around. I’ll cut the cake. Who wants a corner piece?

The deal

Andre Drummond goes to Cleveland for G Brandon Knight (former Pistons 8th overall pick in 2011), PF/C John Henson, and a 2023 second-round pick (the lesser of the two CLE owns for that draft).

The players in the return are barely worth discussing. Knight and Henson are 28 and 29-year-old journeymen (respectively) whose contracts expire at the end of the season. They are just bodies, little more than salary filler, and you likely won’t see much of them on the court. Their minutes would be better utilized developing the Pistons’ young core. The draft pick is minor, but not insignificant. Bruce Brown, Spencer Dinwiddie, and Khris Middleton are three second-round picks that the Pistons have nailed in the past nine years alone (though Dinwiddie and Middleton didn’t become all-star[ish] until leaving Detroit. Whomp whomp). Second-round picks can always be used as trade sweeteners as well. 

That being said, the main course of this trade du jour is the guarantee that the Andre Drummond era is over in Detroit. The Pistons can rest easy knowing they can properly plan for a Drummond-less future with $29 million extra in their pockets, without the weight of his offseason contract decision hanging over their heads.

Victory lap

I could take the high road here and just wish Drummond the best in his future endeavors. But that would be off-brand and insincere for The Warm Take.

In the world of sports analysis and commentary, there are a million variables and moving pieces being played out in real-time. New information and data is being collected, processed, and released every second of every day. You are a fool if you have hard opinions that never waver, despite all evidence to the contrary. Case in point: I thought the Detroit Pistons would be a modestly improved team in 2019-20 and would land in the 7th seed range in the Eastern Conference. My logic and reasoning actually age quite well, despite the season going off the rails (you can check my work here). But due to how the early portion of the season unfolded it became obvious that the Pistons were at an impasse, and that scratching and clawing to remain average wasn’t in the best interests of the team moving forward. No reason to cling to past goals or pretend that, in an alternate future, things could have been different.

But there is one opinion of mine that has remained consistent since the dawn of man. Found in ancient scrolls and discovered amongst the earliest cave paintings. It’s a tale as old as time (true as it can be).

That take: Andre Drummond’s skill set does not translate to winning basketball games.

The Warm Take is still in its infancy in the sports media landscape, so I only have timestamped proof dating back to 2019 of this claim. But rest assured, I have been screaming this opinion from the rooftop for many years. I almost fell off one time because it was snowy up there!

Finally, after 591 games of evidence as a Detroit Piston (that hurt to type), league sources lent their voice to this very notion…

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This may not seem like a revelatory opinion, but it did take the Pistons eight years and a boatload of cash to jump on board. Plus, there is still a contingent of fans out there that think Andre’s lack of a supporting cast is the reason the Pistons haven’t notched a single playoff victory in his career. Some think he deserves to play for a contender and taste some well-deserved postseason success.

The fact that Cleveland, owners of the second-worst record in the NBA, is the team to take Drummond off of the Pistons’ hands speaks volumes. No contending team was going to risk Andre coming in and nuking their on-court chemistry. The playoffs are a time for high-IQ basketball and effectively playing to your strengths, not volatility and stat-chasing. He will have every opportunity to be Andre Drummond 2.0 in Cleveland. If they liked what they saw in Detroit, he should have no problem replicating that production. Just don’t expect to win anything meaningful.

And if the other Cavs’ big men even think about taking any of Dre’s boards, they’re about to get a knuckle sandwich. Those are Andre’s boards. Team rebounding not required. Dre’s got it covered!

Check out this story by ESPN’s Kevin Pelton (ESPN+) for an in-depth breakdown (might as well be a eulogy) of why Drummond’s rebounding prowess doesn’t translate to on-court value, and may actually hurt his team’s success in the one area where he dominates. It’s gets pretty geeky, but I love how it explains what I’ve been seeing over the course of his career, without the proper metrics to point to as evidence. Well done, sir!

One of Pelton’s points I will expand upon is Drummond’s tendency to over-pursue anything that would potentially show up in the box score for himself (REB, BLK, STL). Whether it is a rebound where Drummond tries to outleap an opponent rather than box him out, spying and selling out for a steal rather than sticking to his defensive responsibility, or trying to block an unblockable shot, all of these actions have negative team consequences when they fail. They don’t show up on the stat sheet as “Drummond allows offensive rebound by being out of position” or “Drummond allows layup trying to pick the pocket of a guard”, but it affects the final score. How much Drummond cares about that requires further analysis. But that is Cleveland’s problem now. 

Yes, it is time for all parties to move on. Andre can get a long-overdue fresh start with a new squad and try to prove the haters wrong. The Pistons can get their chess pieces out and start planning their moves. And I can have fun watching basketball again, putting all of my focus on the players who can be a part of the Pistons future. 

Hold up, Andre wants the last word. I’m sure it’s something in the realm of “Thanks for the absurd amount of money” or “Sorry it took me 500 games to learn how to shoot free throws”.

Playing the $30 million victim on his way out the door. Good look. Drummond not playing with “heart and soul” jumps off the screen, and has long been one of the most frustrating things about him. But hey, as long as he throws out that tired cliche about himself, it must be true. This reminds me of a Louis CK bit about when someone tells you they’re “not an asshole”. That’s up to the rest of us to decide, not you.

The heart and soul part is subjective, so we’ll have to just roll our eyes and move on. The outright lie about “to have this happen with no heads up” means that this guy is either delusional or just wants to drag his former organization through the mud. I can’t even fathom how many times Drummond has been asked about how he dealt with all the trade rumors. That was basically every question he was asked post-game after he played what turned out to be the final game of his Pistons career Wednesday night. 

Oddly enough, he answered all those questions with very blase responses about how “whatever happens happens” and “I’m not worried about whether I’m traded” and “I’m just going to be a professional”. In fact, when he was asked if he still wanted to be in Detroit he very snarkily responded with “you would know if I changed my mind”. A simple “yes” would have sufficed there. So in classic Andre fashion, he goes from not caring to feeling betrayed in the blink of an eye. That’s pretty on-brand with his on-court performance.

Then there’s the whole “loyalty” part. Wasn’t it Drummond that called his opting-out shot this past summer, before a 2019-20 game had even been played and the team had aspirations to go back to the playoffs? Check the following video, where Drummond sounds pretty excited to be an upcoming free agent. He wasn’t even asked about his plans directly, he just offered them up. As if the notion of loyalty even exists in the business of modern professional sports in the first place, Drummond expects you to be loyal to him, not the other way around. 

And boy, does he love himself some Drummond. Adding a three-point shot and bringing the ball up the court to take pressure off of your guards? Those comments aren’t aging well.

It was also reported that a potential deal with Atlanta could have gone down several weeks ago, except the Drummond camp’s extension demands essentially killed the deal. But hey, “no heads up”, and “just a business”, right?

Divorce papers

I’ve fallen into another Drummond-bashing rabbit-hole. I’m not sure if it’s therapeutic or if I’m just a bitter Detroit sports fan in the middle of the worst era one city has ever experienced. Before we say our final goodbyes, I think it would be beneficial to say something nice about a man I have expended so much emotional energy on over the past eight years. Here goes nothing…

I don’t think Andre Drummond is a bad human being. He has no scandals in his history. No negative public moments off the court that I can remember, and if I’m forgetting one I will happily take the “L”. He deserves better than me rummaging around in his past just to slander his name. He seems to have plenty of friends around the league, and his teammates have always supported him. There are definitely worse people you could have as a representative for your city. 

It’s also not his fault that he was given the max deal that stagnated this franchise. That mistake is on owner Tom Gores and former president Stan Van Gundy. Ultimately, you are worth what someone is willing to pay you, which made Drummond a max player. 

The empty stats he put up didn’t fool me, but they did fool plenty of others around the league, including the aforementioned Gores, as well as (apparently) the Cavaliers. Those numbers got Drummond paid before, and will likely get him paid again (though far less than he expects). After all, why would Cleveland trade for Drummond without the intention to re-sign and build around him? They have no use for a rental player, so they must consider Drummond a part of their future. Drummond’s stat-stuffing has set his family up for prosperity, and in a world full of selfish people looking out for number one, Drummond handled the business of Drummond pretty spectacularly. Good for him.

About the “empty stats” thing: they weren’t all empty. Sometimes Drummond did appear fully-engaged and looked like a force of nature in games that mattered. I’ve previously highlighted Drummond’s domination of Indiana (who is currently 31-20) in game one of this season as an example of good Drummond. But perhaps his most important performance came in game 591, his last with Detroit, against Phoenix on Wednesday.

Why did this game matter – a matchup of two likely bottom-ten teams? We can only speculate, but maybe this dominating performance on the final day before the trade deadline is what pushed the Cavs into thinking Andre was worth the investment. This game could have changed the course of the future for two franchises. As the terrific Renee Miller of The Athletic can tell you, recency bias is a powerful force in shaping our decisions.

The best part is that now we can all be friends. Staying together for the kids is always a bad idea. Plus, look how happy Cleveland is with the new marriage…

Where are you two going on your honeymoon? How about nowhere? I hear it’s beautiful this time of year.

That’s it for the Drummond portion of Pistons Trade Fallout. Check back in the coming days for my thoughts on the guys who stayed put, and what that might mean for the future.

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