Andre Drummond's Throwback Game Can Still Be Elite in Modern NBA
There's too much outside noise for Andre Drummond to block out completely. The verbal barbs about his free throws, the social media attacks on his defense and focus—he endures it all.
But he refuses to internalize it.
"Everybody's gonna have their own opinion," Drummond told Bleacher Report during a recent phone call. "I can't control what people say about me. So I just leave it alone and work on myself."
Drummond has his own opinions, anyway. He knows his strengths, his weaknesses and, ultimately, his place as a franchise talent.
"Yeah, no question," he said, when asked if that's how he views himself.
The former-project-pick-turned-franchise-face set a slew of personal bests in 2015-16 while steering the young Detroit Pistons out of a six-year playoff drought. He captured the NBA rebounding title, paced all players with 66 double-doubles and became the first player with at least five 20-point, 20-rebound performances since 2011-12. All this while the NBA trends smaller and emphasizes shooting more than ever.
While trekking through Europe on behalf of the NBA, Drummond spoke with Bleacher Report about his basketball journey, what's next for the Pistons and the importance of community involvement.
Detroit, Drummond Rising Together
Drummond just finished the most successful campaign of his four-year career, and it is no coincidence that the Pistons had their best season since his arrival as the ninth pick in 2012. The hyper-athletic center made debut appearances on both the All-Star and All-NBA teams, and the Pistons made their postseason return with their highest win total since 2007-08 (44).
"This year was a really big steppingstone for us," Drummond said. "I think half of the guys on the team had never made the playoffs, so for us to get there is definitely progress and makes us want to work harder."
It's a process Drummond already knows extensively.
Once an unpolished garbage man, he's expanded his game to the point of now serving in a featured offensive role. Whether creating for himself in the post or running pick-and-rolls with point guard Reggie Jackson, Drummond serves as one of Detroit's primary threats despite the league's infatuation with stretch 4s and 5s.
"Just really being patient and sticking to my routing and working on my game," Drummond said of scaling Detroit's offensive pecking order. "I got better over the years and became a main option on the team."
Pistons president and head coach Stan Van Gundy accentuated that growth by reshaping this roster around Drummond. Congestion-relieving snipers have been hauled in by the busload, particularly up front, where Drummond went from suiting up alongside interior scorer Greg Monroe to now sharing the floor with stretch forwards Tobias Harris, Marcus Morris and Anthony Tolliver.
"When you've got a great big guy and you've got a guard who really penetrates, you need to put people around them, guys who can shoot the ball, spread the floor out and give them room..." Van Gundy said, per USA Today's Jeff Zillgitt. "Knowing that [Drummond is] a foundational piece for us, put the people around him that help him perform the best."
The Pistons are young and newly formed—Drummond is already their longest-tenured player—but they're also feisty and full of potential. They may have been swept by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the opening round of this year's playoffs, but three of the four outings carried single-digit deficits into the final minute.
The upside is easy to see; but so is the need for development.
Work in Progress
Drummond ranked in the bottom third of post-up players with a scoring rate of only 0.73 points per possession. He finished a solid-not-spectacular ninth among centers in ESPN.com's defensive real plus-minus and allowed the fifth-highest field-goal percentage at the rim of high-volume interior defenders.
And that says nothing of the biggest elephant in Detroit's locker room—Drummond's gargantuan free-throw woes. His 38.0 career percentage at the stripe is the league's fifth-lowest of all time (minimum 100 games). His 35.5 percent mark this past season was the worst ever for a qualified shooter.
Those are more than anemic numbers; they're often reasons for Van Gundy to pull his best player off the floor. Drummond only ranked fifth on the Pistons in fourth-quarter minutes (476) and fourth in minutes played in clutch situations (126).
"We all know that that's one of the main issues in my game right now," Drummond said. "So I'm gonna take this summer to really work on that and get better at it and try to get that percentage up."
Van Gundy has said Drummond is willing to try anything to fix that problem, including adopting Hall of Famer Rick Barry's "granny style" shot.
"As far as shooting underhand or anything else, it's fair to say...everything is on the table," Van Gundy said, per Rod Beard of the Detroit News.
But Drummond says, adamantly, "No. No, I'm not doing that."
The longer his free throws remain a problem, the more ammunition his critics will have against him. Drew Sharp of the Detroit Free Press recently opined that the Pistons can't contend with Drummond as the centerpiece, a time-sensitive take given the likelihood of Drummond landing a max contract this summer.
But that payday is forthcoming, because a plethora of numbers paint him as a franchise centerpiece.
Superstar Potential
Drummond's NBA identity isn't fully formed, yet he was still one of only 14 players to post a 20-plus player efficiency rating in each of the last four seasons.
Since entering the league, he ranks second in total rebounds and first by a mile on the offensive glass. He's tracked down 1,441 offensive boards. Only three other players have cleared 1,000, and not one is within 200 of Drummond.
"I just have the will to want to get the ball," he said. "I just go after it each and every time. Not everybody wants to chase the rebound down all the time, but that's something I'm really good at."
That so much of his point production comes on the offensive glass—he scored a league-high 426 second-chance points this season—surely provides its own motivation.
He's also unfairly mobile for a player his size (6'11", 279 pounds) and therefore uniquely equipped to stymie today's small-ball attacks. The lateral-quickness advantage that should be gained when a center steps away from the basket doesn't materialize when Drummond is that defender.
"He checks off all the same boxes that perimeter players do," Dr. Marcus Elliott, founder and lead scientist at Peak Performance Project (P3), told ESPN.com's Tom Haberstroh. "That's super rare for a big man. You almost never have a guy that big who's comparable to a 200-pound guy."
Thus, Drummond is the NBA's best rebounder, a defensive zig to a league-wide offensive zag and a top-50 scorer without the benefit of a refined post game or reliable free-throw shot.
It's not hard to see why the Pistons would bet on his potential, especially when the 22-year-old fits perfectly in their timeline—their top-six postseason rotation players are all 26 or younger.
And that's not even mentioning the impact Drummond is making away from the court.
Community and Locker Room Leader
Drummond took home the NBA Cares Community Assist Award in February for a wide range of humanitarian efforts and finished 12th in voting for the Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year Award. His European trip entailed visiting and meeting fans in Denmark, London and Paris.
"The kids, the people in all the areas who watch the NBA, they look up to you," he said. "It's my job to be a good role model. For me to be in the communities and just be there, it's better than giving money."
A big kid at heart, he has no trouble finding comfort in unfamiliar places—like London's world famous Lord's Cricket Ground, which he visited with local star players Eoin Morgan and Brendon McCullum.
"I don't really have much of a cricket background, didn't really know much about it," Drummond said. "But just being on that historic field and meeting some of the best players in the cricket game today, it was definitely a good moment for me."
And a hands-on moment at that.
"I hit a few balls while I was out there," he said.
Based on the video evidence, "hit" might be an understatement.
He looks like a natural, which is fitting since that's how he sounds in the leadership role he's been thrust into in Detroit.
He's already had a year to celebrate, and that's before putting pen to paper on a Powerball-sized contract. (It's also before the NBA perhaps makes changes to the Hack-A-Shaq rule, per Zillgitt.)
No one would blame him for relaxing and relishing what he's accomplished for a bit. But that's not his focus, and he won't let it be his teammates' focus, either.
"I've been there when things are tough," he said. "And now that things are starting to get better, I gotta do a good job of keeping my guys humble and wanting to work hard. We have to come back stronger."
All quotes obtained firsthand, unless otherwise noted. Statistics used courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com.
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