How many teams would Andre Drummond start for?

[babyjax13]

The question should probably be rephrased to "which team would be dumb enough to start Andre Drummond?"

[jpengland]

I caught a few minutes of Philly the other night and he was that slow on defense I genuinely thought for a second that Philly had brought back Amir Johnson.

[jpengland]

The question should probably be rephrased to "which team would be dumb enough to start Andre Drummond?"

Mavs. See; Kidd, Jason.

[Roger Murdock]

Drummond needs to spend his entire career on one year prove it deals

The second a team does something stupid and offers him long term money he’s going to start jacking up awful shots, dribbling off his foot, and throwing passes into the 3rd row

He needs to be forced financially to care about the team against his own judgement

[GeorgeMarcus]

Very happy with Drummond at backup C but he still wouldn't start on most teams. Optimistically 6-10.

[flow]

The Hornets and Raptors come to mind. I think starting isn't the issue here though. He's probably most effective as a bench big who plays significant minutes and his contract doesn't reflect that at all.

No way he'd start for the Hornets.

.

He'd definitely start for us. Our rebounding and interior defense is pathetically bad on most nights.

Your interior defense wouldn't improve any. Your rebounding would, but at the expense of any facet of the game offensively you're getting from Plumlee. Not worth it. Believe me. I lived it for 8 years as a Pistons fan. And then had Plumlee last season.

Everyone who first acquires/wants to acquire Drummond gets excited because of the rebounding numbers. Then, once he starts actually playing for their team, they understand what everyone who knows Drummond's game was warning them about.

.

[Laimbeer]

The "not winning" narrative is somewhat off the mark. He's played nearly his entire career with the Pistons, who stunk anyway. When he left they took a significant turn downward.

He's also blown up the narrative that he only puts up big rebounding numbers because of the Piston system, whatever that meant.

Hard to believe he's only 28.

[brutalitops]

Andre Drummond would start in a lot of teams

Infact, I would be benched if Andre Drummond would play in my Rec team on Tuesdays,

He would start in a few teams in the Euro-leaues

He's not starting in any of the 30 NBA teams.

[Ballerhogger]

He would be on the mavs they need a actual center,

[Joshuan3]

The Hornets and Raptors come to mind. I think starting isn't the issue here though. He's probably most effective as a bench big who plays significant minutes and his contract doesn't reflect that at all.

He wouldn’t start for the Raptors

Watch on YouTube

[Doctor MJ]

The "not winning" narrative is somewhat off the mark. He's played nearly his entire career with the Pistons, who stunk anyway. When he left they took a significant turn downward.

He's also blown up the narrative that he only puts up big rebounding numbers because of the Piston system, whatever that meant.

Hard to believe he's only 28.

I don't recall that ever being the narrative.

Offensive rebounding was the one thing he was good at, the problem was that people looked at all-in-one metrics that allowed his offensive rebounding to make him look like an overall great player, when in reality he never could do all the things.

[Laimbeer]

The "not winning" narrative is somewhat off the mark. He's played nearly his entire career with the Pistons, who stunk anyway. When he left they took a significant turn downward.

He's also blown up the narrative that he only puts up big rebounding numbers because of the Piston system, whatever that meant.

Hard to believe he's only 28.

I don't recall that ever being the narrative.

Offensive rebounding was the one thing he was good at, the problem was that people looked at all-in-one metrics that allowed his offensive rebounding to make him look like an overall great player, when in reality he never could do all the things.

The Piston system inflating his rebounding narrartive may have beem more limited to the Piston forum.

Don't think I've heard many (any?) people call him an overall great player who could do all the things because of his metrics. My broader point is you hear terms like "doesn't help you win", etc, in threads like this. If the implication is he's a negative player, I'd disagree, particularly in his Piston years. His potential wasn't as great as some hoped.

[Frank Dux]

He shouldn't start anywhere. Complete turd of a player. Probably my least favorite Laker of all time.

[Doctor MJ]

The "not winning" narrative is somewhat off the mark. He's played nearly his entire career with the Pistons, who stunk anyway. When he left they took a significant turn downward.

He's also blown up the narrative that he only puts up big rebounding numbers because of the Piston system, whatever that meant.

Hard to believe he's only 28.

I don't recall that ever being the narrative.

Offensive rebounding was the one thing he was good at, the problem was that people looked at all-in-one metrics that allowed his offensive rebounding to make him look like an overall great player, when in reality he never could do all the things.

The Piston system inflating his rebounding narrartive may have beem more limited to the Piston forum.

Don't think I've heard many (any?) people call him an overall great player who could do all the things because of his metrics. My broader point is you hear terms like "doesn't help you win", etc, in threads like this. If the implication is he's a negative player, I'd disagree, particularly in his Piston years. His potential wasn't as great as some hoped.

So my experience with Drummond evaluations is that people who at the time were really buying in to the Wins Produced metric tended to see Drummond as the ROY and the best superstar prospect of his draft over Davis due to that metric putting so, so much weight on offensive rebounds.

And the issue is that impact through offensive rebounding is something that requires very little understanding of basketball, and thus it's an area where young bigs tend to first have success...but there's no reason to think that their aptitude and jumping to catch misses will extend to any other facet of the game.

While in theory an offensive rebounder can be so good that that's all he needs to do, in practice you really need to be able to understand what to do in any situation you encounter in order to be someone who can stay on the court when it matters.

So, then my answer to the prompt of this thread then would be:

I'm not sure what kind of team would want Drummond as a starter. If you're envisioning 5 guys on the court while you're playing for a championship, Drummond isn't going to be one of those 5 guys. While we can talk about "but he's better than the starting center on team X", but that just makes us ask what team X is doing. Typically, if they are starting a guy worse than Drummond on purpose, the guy should be a young prospect who they are trying to help teach basketball to.

Of course, there is also the reality of injury, and so yeah, when you hit injuries, sometimes the best solution would be to start a guy like Drummond. There's just never a time where any team should be thinking "We have Drummond, so we have our starting 5 for the forseeable future."

[Doctor MJ]

No way he'd start for the Hornets.

.

He'd definitely start for us. Our rebounding and interior defense is pathetically bad on most nights.

Your interior defense wouldn't improve any. Your rebounding would, but at the expense of any facet of the game offensively you're getting from Plumlee. Not worth it. Believe me. I lived it for 8 years as a Pistons fan. And then had Plumlee last season.

Everyone who first acquires/wants to acquire Drummond gets excited because of the rebounding numbers. Then, once he starts actually playing for their team, they understand what everyone who knows Drummond's game was warning them about.

.

Yeah it's crucial to understand that when we talk about Drummond only excelling on offensive rebounding, that's because the role of a big man on defense requires considerably more awareness which Drummond has really, really struggled to figure out.

This was what struck me when watching Davis & Drummond in college. You had Davis, a guy who with a late growth spurt was only just learning to play like a big man, and you had Drummond who had been being taught big man skills as an elite prospect forever...but Davis surpassed Drummond's big man BBIQ instantly and kept on going.

Now, it's possible that Drummond is in the process of finally turning that corner, but we waited a long time to see progress and just didn't see it.

[jokeboy86]

Remember when teams and scouts would always overrate bigs from the Big East who were going pro? Thankfully those days are over.

[heezyo2o]

Do Philly fans prefer Drummond over Dwight from last year?

[Johnny Bball]

If there was a zero option, I would pick that.

[MotownMadness]

The Hornets and Raptors come to mind. I think starting isn't the issue here though. He's probably most effective as a bench big who plays significant minutes and his contract doesn't reflect that at all.

He wouldn’t start for the Raptors

Watch on YouTube

That awkward convo after he tried to trade him for Drummond

[chilluminati]

A perfect example of someone who should just rim run and use that immaculate tip-in-release to generate ALL of his offense outside of lobs, but doesn't, thinks he should do more, but is an absolute caveman.