Howard/Bynum pre-draft scouting reports

[mercury]

Looks like a lotta premature judgulation goin' on here.

[joseph mamah]

the terd in the punch bowl kind of guys bother me. the pistons are a great franchise who have fallen on hard times recently. now that we might finally be able to see a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel we dont need these guys coming in here muddying up our kool aid. we do a good enough job of that ourselves.

[Scout Taron]

As of right now, Andre Drummond is not very good at basketball. I don't understand what is so revolutionary and mindblowing about that.

[joseph mamah]

For someone who isnt good at basketball you seem to be awfully worried about him. im not over on the raptors forum talking about terence ross.

[Scout Taron]

For someone who isnt good at basketball you seem to be awfully worried about him.

Why? Because I've made two posts defending common sense? I don't get the delusion with him. Drummond is a project....I mean. Literally EVERYONE has said and admitted. It's why he dropped to us! Scouts. GMs. Calhoun. Frank. Dumars. Every media person ever. Drummond is a PROJECT that needs to learn how to play basketball. I'm not hating on him because he had an up and down summer league. IT'S A **** FACT.

I don't understand why accepting reality means I'm an enormous hater and I think Drummond sucks and will never be good, and the Pistons are terrible, and apparently I'm **** in a punch bowl.


Holy **** this board had gotten bad.

[Scout Taron]

im not over on the raptors forum talking about terence ross.

Greg Monroe is in my **** avatar.

[joseph mamah]

no the fact that your on another teams forum talking smack about a player that your embattled GM passed on to take terence ross makes you the turd in the punchbowl.

[Scout Taron]

no the fact that your on another teams forum talking smack about a player that your embattled GM passed on to take terence ross makes you the turd in the punchbowl.

Greg Monroe is in my **** avatar.

[wii16]

For Dwight, 'raw' meant he couldn't shoot and didn't always know where to be, but he had a good feel for the game; for Drummond, it means he's not a good player and doesn't know how to be effective yet.

lol, I love the hate towards my boy Drummond...Please don't hop on the bandwagon when he's dunking on everyone and blocking shots regularly...

[Collymore]

Drummond is the best center in the world.

[Warspite]

For someone who isnt good at basketball you seem to be awfully worried about him.

Why? Because I've made two posts defending common sense? I don't get the delusion with him. Drummond is a project....I mean. Literally EVERYONE has said and admitted. It's why he dropped to us! Scouts. GMs. Calhoun. Frank. Dumars. Every media person ever. Drummond is a PROJECT that needs to learn how to play basketball. I'm not hating on him because he had an up and down summer league. IT'S A **** FACT.

I don't understand why accepting reality means I'm an enormous hater and I think Drummond sucks and will never be good, and the Pistons are terrible, and apparently I'm **** in a punch bowl.


Holy **** this board had gotten bad.

Your in the Silent MAJORITY. This board did the same thing 2003 and I drank the Kool aid. Darko was supposed to be a top5 center as a rookie and a 25-14-4 player in his prime. I simply refuse to step on the Titanic that is Drummond. If he makes it great... Ill be routeing for him but Im not going to project or defend him.

[princeofpalace]

Drummond is a big project. He has tremendous potential but could also be a bust. Super high ceiling and a very low floor, the definition of a boom or bust prospect. I don't think you can deny the fact that the bust potential is there, but you also have to acceptt that he has potential to be the next dominant bigman based off his sheer size and athleticism.

The one thing that Drummond can contribute from day 1 is defense. Having him on the court will shore up our paint defense. But, right now he's also a lousy rebounder and has no solid moves offensively. I think he can contribute next season based on his defense alone, he will hurt us in other areas but I feel that his defensive impact is so great it can negate some of his other many deficiencies.

He really could be better than Howard and Bynum but he could also wash out of the league. It truly is up to him, how he matures and how hard he works. I like Joe D's plan of having everyone take responsiblity for his progress so Im now leaning away from bust and more towards solid. Initially, I wanted no part of him but after hearing how English, Monroe etc are all going to mentor him + the return of Ben Wallace, I am very hopeful.

I am now thinking that the most likely scenario is that he becomes a Javele McGee type player but not as stupid but he could be dominant or he could be a scrub. Lets see how it all plays out, lets trust that the FO to develop him . Personally, I cannot root for him to be a scrub just to validate my own predraft opinions of him. We need him to succeed.

[Unclecreepy]

Drummond is a big project. He has tremendous potential but could also be a bust. Super high ceiling and a very low floor, the definition of a boom or bust prospect. I don't think you can deny the fact that the bust potential is there, but you also have to acceptt that he has potential to be the next dominant bigman based off his sheer size and athleticism.

The one thing that Drummond can contribute from day 1 is defense. Having him on the court will shore up our paint defense. But, right now he's also a lousy rebounder and has no solid moves offensively. I think he can contribute next season based on his defense alone, he will hurt us in other areas but I feel that his defensive impact is so great it can negate some of his other many deficiencies.

He really could be better than Howard and Bynum but he could also wash out of the league. It truly is up to him, how he matures and how hard he works. I like Joe D's plan of having everyone take responsiblity for his progress so Im now leaning away from bust and more towards solid. Initially, I wanted no part of him but after hearing how English, Monroe etc are all going to mentor him + the return of Ben Wallace, I am very hopeful.

I am now thinking that the most likely scenario is that he becomes a Javele McGee type player but not as stupid but he could be dominant or he could be a scrub. Lets see how it all plays out, lets trust that the FO to develop him . Personally, I cannot root for him to be a scrub just to validate my own predraft opinions of him. We need him to succeed.

This is pretty much how I feel.
High risk, high reward.
Drummond is a gamble as far as I see it.
The Pistons have been hard to watch for a few years.
This could be huge for the team..
I'm just praying it works out.

[HotelVitale]

Yeah, I'm going to really enjoy watching Drummond progress and grow, but I won't set up expectations that he'll have a Dwight Howard-like rookie year (12/10 with 2 blocks) and be putting up 20+ PERs by his 2nd year like Bynum and Howard. Not because I'm gun shy or a weak-willed Pistons fan, but because I don't think those are likely, rational, or fair projections at this point. I definitely hope he improves quicker and more continuously than most big men do--it'd be completely, no-holds-barred awesome to have a massive, Howard-like center ruling over the Central Division. (Also, if Drum had put up a dominant summer league performance and averaged 15/11/3, I'd be going crazy now and starting threads about drafting his HOF entrance speech. Just not seeing reasons to be excited yet).

[hoophabit]

I have to agree with the recent posts. It isn't "drinking the Kool-Aide" to be hopeful. Drummond showed raw during SL (weren't we all shocked?). At the same time there were numerous plays where you thought to yourself wow! The athletic ability is first rate, so it's all a matter of head and heart. Most who have known him say he's a smart kid who wants to be good. I think everyone here knows he's a project. Nothing about him was said so consistently. We'll continue to talk about this until time provides the answer one way or the other. Howard, Bynum, or Milicic are all irrelevant to how this will turn out.

I'd also like to note that although he didn't set the world on fire during SL the team was pretty successful when he played. His presence down low and shot blocking helped the team. Stephen A Smith aside, he didn't look entirely clueless to me, and to declare him a scrub at this point is just hyperbole (imagine that from Stephen). He'll control how much he plays, and exactly how much that might be is very hard to anticipate.

[FlipTSO]

As of right now, Andre Drummond is not very good at basketball. I don't understand what is so revolutionary and mindblowing about that.

Because its simply untrue. There's many aspects of basketball. You don't have to be good at all of them to be considered a good basketball player. ppl like to base their judgement off of his one year in college and use that to say he's not good at basketball. But if you are going to use that as the basis to criticize him, then you also have to give him credit for being ranked in the 96th percentile of post defenders in the NCAA by synergy. I guess defense doesn't count towards being considered a good basketball player.

The way ppl talk about him, you would think we found him on a volleyball court in another country and he'd never played basketball before. You aren't in the 96th percentile of post defenders if you aren't very good at basketball. And you don't avg 10 pts, 8 rebs, and 3 blks on 54% FG at a major college program in the Big East if you aren't very good at basketball.

He's a project in that his overall game is unrefined, but not in the sense that he's not very good at anything like you keep trying to imply. ppl are acting like he's Daniel Orton and avg 2 pts and 2 rebs last year. No one is saying he's the greatest Center in the league right now, but this idea going around that he's not even good at basketball is just foolish.

[HotelVitale]

Again, in the definition I was using, being 'good' at basketball means being more effective overall than a decent/replacement-level player. Everyone who plays college ball is a 'good' basketball player in the colloquial sense of being able to do some things effectively, but we should think of 'good' as relative: how 'good' are you in comparison to other players at your level. When I said he doesn't seem like a good NBA player (yet!), I meant that, unlike Dwight Howard when he first came into the league, his plusses don't seem to outweigh his deficiencies relative to other NBA players. Doesn't mean he can't contribute some things, just that I'm betting he can't contribute as much as another decent NBA 5 at this point. Hoping and praying he can soon, but not seeing it now.

(Flip, since you brought it up, would you consider Gorgui Dieng likely to be a 'good' NBA player? He averaged similar stats to Drummond--9/9 and 3.2 blocks--last year at Louisville, which also plays in the Big East. Sorry if I sound like a d*ck, but in the definition I'm using those stats don't make you a good NBA prospect.)

[ComboGuardCity]

Great post Flip.

[need4detroit]

I just don't understand how Drummonds a huge risk like everyone's making him out to be. There's so many people that are saying he "might be out of the league in a few years". Mark my words, he will not be out of the league in a few years. Just on defense alone he will at least be serviceable. And I agree, great post by flip.

[Jodi]

Most of the people here hating on Drummond are probably the ones who wanted Henson...+1 for Mr. Flip too...