Drummond Appreciation Thread

[Mr. Krabs]

good times

[440BB]

From draftexpress.com, March 2012

His feel for the game in general is still a work in progress, as he's the type of player who can make incredibly good and bad plays, sometimes on consecutive possessions. He doesn't appear to be going 100% at times, and there have been some concerns raised about exactly how passionate he is about the game of basketball due to his laid-back demeanor.

Andre remains a very physically gifted player with the same issues as eight years ago. He worked on his game but his approach remains the same. He'll likely retire a wealthy man without a ring. I wish him well.

[MrBigShot]

Throwback to Dre making Gobert look like a little kid after not getting picked as an all star initially:

Watch on YouTube

Was time to move on but I genuinely wish him the best.

[DetroitSho]

If Dre reached his maximum potential here, instead of making the playoffs twice, we would have made the playoffs........three times at best. Even Anthony Davis only made the playoffs like twice in New Orleans with crap around him. The biggest problem has always been the rest of the roster.

People who look at his salary and blame it as a reason this team couldn't improve is only spitting a nonsense cliche. Call him overpaid or whatever, I can get with that. But acting like you can't win with competent pieces around him is idiotic and played out.

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How do you get him too quit thinking hes a main option and a star though? His IQ just hurts him, he literally scores everything at the rim and is still one of the most inefficient bigs there.

Easy, a competent leader at PG. Chauncey wouldn't even give Drummond the ball in certain spots he gets it in now. Rondo wouldn't even allow him to bring the ball up past half court, let alone initiate the offense. A competent PG changes EVERYTHING.

I'm not exactly seeing where the offense is bad because of Drummond and not just because of it being just bad.

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[DetroitSho]

I never wanted Drummond on this team, having him as the "superstar" was one of the main reason's we have been mired in mediocrity for so long and a large reason as to why I quit this team.

Well you should be over the moon because if it wasn't Drummond in the draft it would've been Henson.

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[hoophabit]

Can't argue that it wasn't time. Drummond is a likable guy, but never comes up big in the big moments. Too bad.

[MotownMadness]

If Dre reached his maximum potential here, instead of making the playoffs twice, we would have made the playoffs........three times at best. Even Anthony Davis only made the playoffs like twice in New Orleans with crap around him. The biggest problem has always been the rest of the roster.

People who look at his salary and blame it as a reason this team couldn't improve is only spitting a nonsense cliche. Call him overpaid or whatever, I can get with that. But acting like you can't win with competent pieces around him is idiotic and played out.

Sent from my SM-N975U using RealGM mobile app

How do you get him too quit thinking hes a main option and a star though? His IQ just hurts him, he literally scores everything at the rim and is still one of the most inefficient bigs there.

Easy, a competent leader at PG. Chauncey wouldn't even give Drummond the ball in certain spots he gets it in now. Rondo wouldn't even allow him to bring the ball up past half court, let alone initiate the offense. A competent PG changes EVERYTHING.

I'm not exactly seeing where the offense is bad because of Drummond and not just because of it being just bad.

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I dont want a scenario where we have to go buy a competent PG to stop Drummond from doing dumb things like that at 30 mil.

[MotownMadness]

Throwback to Dre making Gobert look like a little kid after not getting picked as an all star initially:

Watch on YouTube

Was time to move on but I genuinely wish him the best.

Games like those would really make me mad. It shows what a difference maker he can be but just doesnt feel like it or something.

Give me that guy and ill sign him up all day. But reality is he can come off a performance like that against Gobert and come out the next couple nights and let lesser Centers have their way with him.

[ElectricMayhem]

Throwback to Dre making Gobert look like a little kid after not getting picked as an all star initially:

Watch on YouTube

Was time to move on but I genuinely wish him the best.

This situation encapsulates everything you need to know about Andre Drummond. It shows both his vast ability and lack of ability to play to that ability when team goals are on the line.

I appreciate the fleeting hope he gave us the year he came out of the gate posting video game numbers for a week or two. Also, he powered through his free throw problems somewhat.

Here’s to hoping Cleveland allows him to be the outside shooting threat he always wanted to be.

[DBC10]

I dont want a scenario where we have to go buy a competent PG to stop Drummond from doing dumb things like that at 30 mil.

I sort of agree.

The list keeps growing if we keep going down that road in thinking.
He needs:
- The perfect leadership PG/SF that can also keep him in check but also a good shooter and defender
- Abundant wings that are 3&D guys that are competent
- A PF that can defend well and space the floor
- Spacing, spacing, spacing bench mob
- Somehow finding and signing/trading for these guys

It's too tall of a task. I don't even think we can afford like 3 of those criteria above with the current cap. Wings are too much of a premium luxury and great PGs don't come around often.

Our biggest issue was framing our entire franchise as him being the center piece that begins & ends with him in roster construction. The FO clearly messed up by crowning him too fast, too early and overhyped themselves. I completely blame the FO's lack of foresight into the PG/SF era we are now in at the current NBA. Seemingly every great team has either a great PG or SF (think Curry/CP3 or Lebron/KD) and we have neither in the last decade.

I wish Drummond well, he did his part in at least trying to make Detroit relevant for basketball. It wasn't his fault the FO played themselves.

[DBC10]

Throwback to Dre making Gobert look like a little kid after not getting picked as an all star initially:

Watch on YouTube

Was time to move on but I genuinely wish him the best.

This situation encapsulates everything you need to know about Andre Drummond. It shows both his vast ability and lack of ability to play to that ability when team goals are on the line.

I appreciate the fleeting hope he gave us the year he came out of the gate posting video game numbers for a week or two. Also, he powered through his free throw problems somewhat.

Here’s to hoping Cleveland allows him to be the outside shooting threat he always wanted to be.

I just wish he just came out mad every night and just set mean screens for people all over the place while playing energetic defense. Even just going around doing that would've made more impact than he already does on his more usual nights.

[rmfc]

It would have been nice to see him play alongside average/above average level perimeter players at least once in his Pistons career.
Oh, well!

[pistonsbball]

Nothing against the guy, this is basketball.

I wish him the best and hope he does well. He seemed to do a lot of extra stuff for the community, gotta respect that.

[dVs33]

I hope the guy can find his role in the league. He's incredibly gifted and could be a really useful player once he figures it out.
There's no way that happens in Cleveland imo.
He will always be the most infuriating player I can remember. So much potential, but an awful mentality. It took Dwight Howard until now to figure it out, maybe dre can do it sooner.
I wish him the best.
Now on to the rebuild!!!

[Billl]

Whatever you think of him on the court, he was great for detroit in the community. Pretty much every time there was any sort of piston charity initiative, dre was there.

[In SVG We Trust]

Is this for real? He totally embarrassed what a bad boys jersey means

[ByeByeDre]

I’ll remember two things. The super athletic things he would do from time to time, and the year he flat out dogged it after getting a max contract.

Good bye to the Darryl Dawkins of this era.

[SamFlow]

The only way he'll man up is if some alpha dog of the team starts calling him a little bitch and disregarding him and not paying attention to him at all. Forcing dre to man up to get attention he desires.

[Snakebites]

Alrighty. This post is probably going to end up being a TL;DR, but writing it will help me process all of this. Certainly won't begrudge anyone who looks at this wall of text and just says "eh, don't need to read all that".

Firstly, I'll start with some positives. There were games where he impacted the game like few players can. Despite rough seasons, he never complained about being on the Pistons. He never requested a trade or anything like that. He always appeared to be really loyal to the team. He was a good guy in general and good for the community from what I can tell, and I hope he has a successful and steady career in this league. I don't dislike him personally nor do I wish any ill upon him. I categorically do not think he's deserving of some of the vindictiveness I've seen in this thread so far.

I also think that, to an extent, the team failed him. There was no coaching stability, very little roster stability, and he never played with any good playmakers. We tried to shoe-horn him next to guys like Greg Monroe, Josh Smith, and Blake Griffin, sometimes even more than one of those at the same time. We never did a good job building a team he would fit into, and frankly when we had him starting alongside Josh Smith and Greg Monroe that almost seemed like something you'd do to actively sabotage a guy. I say this not to excuse any of his actual shortcomings (which are coming later), but because I think it is worth noting that he had a rough several years here, and it certainly wasn't all his fault. That's fair to point out. It's also fair to point out that despite all of that he still always remained loyal to the team, never requesting a trade or bashing the team publicly while he was a player here.

With all of that said, I'll actively question his claim that he "gave his heart and soul" to the team, at least all the time. He was often disinterested and unmotivated. When he wasn't in a positive mind set, his impact was zero or negative. You could often tell what type of Drummond game you were getting from the very first possession. His body language said more about him than I've ever seen body language say about a player. His skin was also perilously thin, and there were very valid questions about his passion for the game and his drive- neither of which were consistent. He was a very good to even great player at times, but he was also an almost entirely irrelevant to outright negative impact player when the motivation wasn't there- and that was often enough to really make a difference. As cliché as it sounds, he really didn't have a winner's mentality. I've always hated that phrase and found it lazy as a way to waive off a player's merit, but in this case it really does fit for me.

He also seemed really obsessed and intent upon getting his stats. His actual impact, for that reason, was always smaller than those stats. He was clearly a very good rebounder, but I don't think he's actually the best rebounder in the league despite those stats. He gobbled up a lot of easy ones that probably would have been team rebounds anyway, and his offensive rebounds were inflated by his own misses, too.

He had the physical tools to be an impact defender but he really never got there, and at times he wasn't even a net positive on that end. It's really hard to justify having a center who doesn't spread the floor or even have a great post-up game. On offense, he was a perfectly solid clean-up player who'd work fine as a 4th/5th option on offense and really didn't get it done on defense. He categorically was not worth the contract that we gave him, and certainly wouldn't be worth another max contract.

All things considered, I hope he pulls it together and finds a positive role in the league. There's absolutely no reason he can't if he can get past that mentality. But along with the issues I mention above, the game is moving away from players of his type. The league he's playing in now isn't even really the same league he was drafted into, and that's simply the reality. I wish him the best, but I'm okay with having traded him even knowing we got nothing of substance for him.

Yeah, I think that says it. Farewell, Dre. I'm sorry this didn't work out. I hope you find success elsewhere, but you're getting terrible advice if anyone is telling you not to opt into that contract. You're never seeing a paycheck like that again.

[Shady_]

Bye Bye Dre