There are very few things in life I am more passionate about than helping the world understand what I have known for years: that Andre Drummond is one of the most overrated players in the NBA. And I have three children. I didn’t choose this campaign, it chose me. The guy just unearths an unhealthy amount of frustration and disappointment inside of me, and quite frankly, I want it to end. By many accounts, the Drummond era will reportedly soon be ending in Detroit, with a seemingly endless amount of rumors swirling about potential suitors willing to trade for a 1/2 season rental of the Pistons’ “star” player.

I’m not convinced.

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What have you done for me lately?

December 14th, 2019 is a date that will live in Detroit sports infamy. In one of the great tragedies in American history, Andre Drummond, a 6’10” 280 lb man, age 26, was slain by medium Hass avocado. His teammates took the court with heavy hearts against the mighty Houston Rockets that night and honored their fallen friend by putting together one of their best performances of an otherwise miserable season.

In all seriousness, my takeaway from that game was that trading Drummond might be addition by subtraction, as he simply doesn’t fit with the way the rest of the team (or the league, for that matter) is constructed, and his only dominant skill (rebounding) has been proven over a large sample in Detroit to not move the needle in the win column. 

Fast-forward to present day, and the Pistons have gone 4-11 since Drummond returned to the lineup. Drummond has his fingerprints all over the losses too, logging at least a minus-12 point differential seven times in that span, and coughing the ball up at least three times in eleven of those games. Digging a little deeper reveals that after his recent stellar stretch of play, Drummond now finds himself outside the top 125 players (!) in real plus-minus this season, ESPN’s advanced metric for determining player impact, based on a number of factors. 

His defensive effort, or lack thereof, is getting to “Shaq-tin’ a fool” levels lately as well. Detroit Bad Boys does a nice recap of some of Drummond’s lowlights against Chicago, but they missed my personal favorite, which I captured below…

Worth every penny of that max deal if you ask me.

Here is a post-game quote from head coach Dwane Casey that has a keyword hidden somewhere. See if you can find it. From MLive:

“We didn’t come out with a lot of intensity, and I take responsibility for that,” Casey said. “We didn’t have guys ready to play, come out with the right intensity. I thought the second half we did. I thought we gave ourselves a chance to win the way we came out with our disposition, and our —–>CARING LEVEL <—–was there.”

Did you find it? The first 90% of that quote was house blend, original roast coachspeak, but I don’t think I’ve heard the term “caring level” used before. I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume he was talking about the big fella, who missed all but two minutes of said second half after throwing the ball at the back of the head of rookie Daniel Gafford. Way to set an example for the kids Dre!

Here’s an oldie-but-goodie “Shaq-tin’ a fool” from when Drummond added the long ball to his arsenal. Did you know he makes over 1,000 per day in practice?

Jahlil Okafor – Daniel Gafford – Tristan Thompson – Luke Kornet – Bismack Biyombo – The list of marginal players who have victimized Drummond in recent weeks is staggering. Speaking of Thompson, he posted a career-high 35 pts against the Pistons last week. Thompson never scored 30 in a game in his career up to that point, despite playing nearly 600 career games. Sadly, Thompson has since returned to being Tristan Thompson, going scoreless in his last game. Not a good look for Andre.

But wait…aren’t we tanking now anyway?

Herein lies the conun-Drummond the Pistons now find themselves in. This season is lost. The fans know it, the front office knows it, and most importantly, owner Tom Gores now seems to know it. He appears to finally be open to a rebuild, after finding out the hard way that chasing the 8 seed and getting the doors blown off en route to a four-game sweep isn’t all that fun. Even less fun is chasing the 8 seed and missing the playoffs by a game or three. The 2019-20 season is plummeting toward the earth at an alarming speed. On the bright side, with a little lottery luck, the Pistons could very easily be looking at a top-6 pick in the 2020 draft. Detroit has only selected that high once since the days of Grant Hill (2003: Darko at No. 2).

For all the heat this front office has taken for the current mess the Pistons are in, they have largely hit on their recent draft selections. Sekou Doumbouya (15), Bruce Brown (42), and Luke Kennard (12 *Van Gundy*) all can be viewed as successful picks to varying degrees, with Doumbouya looking like a potential future star at the undercooked age of just 19. We also have to remember, it was Stan Van Gundy who is responsible for the max extension of Andre Drummond in 2016 and the Blake Griffin trade in 2018, the two transactions that made the bed the current front office now lies in. Gores also deserves significant blame for pressuring Van Gundy to build around Drummond, reportedly nixing multiple trades over the years involving his good buddy. 

After all, without Drummond around, who would Gores share awkward arm holds with?

Those nixed trades are now coming back to haunt the Pistons, who despite all the rumors and trade speculation, seem to be having a hard time receiving worthwhile offers for the guy who is widely considered the best rebounder of his generation. NBA insiders have been saying for weeks now (and I have been saying for years) that the return the Pistons would get in exchange for Drummond would be uninspiring. After all, the team who receives Drummond would only be guaranteed his services for the remainder of 2019-20, after which he has the option to opt-out of his contract and test the free agent market where he would be a stinky big fish in a small pond looking for his next big contract.

I fear that the reason the Pistons haven’t made this deal yet is that teams aren’t willing to part with anything in the way of future assets. I don’t mean anything good, I mean anything. Some offers are likely on the table, like this one recently reported involving Atlanta, but they don’t do anything except swap Drummond for an expiring contract. No young player with upside. No draft pick (first round or otherwise). No failed prospect looking for a fresh start. Nothing except a guarantee that the Drummond era in Detroit is over. The front office rightly shouldn’t accept such a deal yet, as there is still some time before the trade deadline in February, where a team might be in a more desperate situation. But if the deadline date nears and there are no better offers, should they pull the trigger just to get him out of town?

I can see both sides.

Is Drummond the tank commander?

The Pistons are 14-26 this season with Andre Drummond in the lineup, despite playing one of the easiest schedules in the league so far. They are 1-1 without him, and nearly stole two other games in which he was ejected/benched in the second half. FiveThirtyEight currently projects the Pistons to finish 29-53, the sixth worst record in the NBA. How much worse are they really going to be after trading him? Will they even be worse? Only time will tell, but there is an argument to be made that the easiest path to a high pick is to hold on to Drummond and ride out his contract until he (fingers crossed) walks this offseason. In the three games before the Pistons shockingly knocked off the Celtics (all losses to bottom-10 teams), Drummond’s individual plus/minus (-12, -14, -6) was worse than the final score discrepancy (-7, -9, -3). Is that a flawed measurement? Probably. But any poor soul (me) who actually watched those games can tell you the Pistons could have won any or all of them without Drummond, and that is far from an exhaustive list of bad Drummond games.

Christian Wood, who stands to benefit most from Drummond’s departure in terms of playing time (though the minutes trickle-down would benefit several players) has been better than Drummond in myriad areas this season. In fact, their per 36-minute numbers favor Wood in many ways. Given the fact that Wood is essentially a 24-year-old rookie (based on his total career minutes) getting his first real shot at significant NBA playing time, with a more consistent role and a boost in usage he could easily develop further and contribute to some wins down the stretch that an unmotivated Drummond would have otherwise cost them. 

That doesn’t mean that Drummond doesn’t still have that 20-20 with adequate defense upside still inside him somewhere that he could summon for brief stretches. But for a guy who is essentially auditioning for potential suitors, he sure is picking a strange time to go into one of his worst stretches of “caring level”.

Though he has been on record stating that he intends to opt-out and test the market this offseason, perhaps he realizes that what is best for his pocketbook is to opt-IN for another year with the Pistons at $28.8 million. He can coast lackadaisically through the remainder of this season, lock in his final year, then try to put together another one of his typical big number, low impact seasons next year with the goal of signing a long-term deal with someone in 2021-22. Despite how great Drummond thinks he is (just ask him), he likely won’t get anything on the open market (annually) close to what he would make next season after opting-in.

Dangerous waters

This is why the Pistons need to bite the bullet and ship Drummond out for anything they can get, even if it doesn’t include any future asset whatsoever. The threat of him reneging on his decision to opt-out and being stuck with Drummond until the end of 2021 is just too risky to the development of the Pistons young core.

Some might argue that if he does opt-in the Pistons could just do the whole deadline shopping dance over again next season and hope for a better return. In theory, this is true. However, for Drummond to command worthwhile trade interest, he needs to play the 33-34 minutes per game he has seen over the past several seasons. Otherwise, he won’t be putting up those sexy 20/20 games that might fool teams into thinking Drummond is better than he is. Plus, with all the young talent the Pistons are attempting to groom, it is highly unlikely Drummond would respond well to a reduced workload anyway. Remember, Drummond is a high-maintenance player who needs heavy usage to remain “engaged”. Blake Griffin and Luke Kennard aren’t even healthy and there are still a lot of mouths to feed. 

 A Drummond divorce could have benefits beyond the new minutes available for developing young talent. For the first time in a long time, there will be clarity about the direction of the team. This clarity would benefit fans, players, and the front office, who would be able to finally shed the skin of mediocrity and aspire for something bigger. You can also begin to build a culture that will allow the young core to flourish by signing the type of veterans who could aid in their development in a way that Drummond never could. Honestly, he still needs some mentoring of his own. Unfortunately, he was given the keys to his own franchise far before he was ready.

Like pretty much everything in the world of Detroit sports these days, there are no easy answers. But Drummond has an opportunity to make this breakup as seamless as possible. He simply needs to put together three weeks of high-effort basketball between now and the Feb. 6 trade deadline. Someone will then come-a-knockin’ with a modest but fair offer and we can all go our merry separate ways. See you on the other side. I have a feeling it won’t go that smoothly. Prove me wrong Dre. For once, please, prove me wrong. 

I’m tired of being right about you.

What about Derrick Rose?

I’m not going to do that man a disservice by tacking him on to the end of my Drummond bitch-fest. He deserves a write-up of his own because he has been a super stud so far this season. Check back as the deadline nears for a Derrick Rose “to trade or not to trade” discussion. 

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