Andre Drummond Facing Important Offseason, Crucial 4th Year in NBA
Andre Drummond won't celebrate his 22nd birthday until August, but he's already facing what could essentially become a make-or-break year in his young NBA career.
Obviously, stagnation in 2015-16 isn't going to mean his tenure with the Detroit Pistons is coming to an end. But a failure to improve would dampen the excitement about this developing big man rather significantly, similar to what we've seen with Jonas Valanciunas and the Toronto Raptors.
Drummond now has three full seasons in the NBA under his belt, but he hasn't exactly become a star in Motor City. His shooting declined dramatically this past campaign, negating some of the more hidden developments in other facets of his game.
Now, barring the team handing him a max extension before Oct. 31, this is the last offseason he'll face without free agency entering into the discussion. Drummond's team option will certainly be picked up this summer, but he'll be staring at the open market after playing out the 2015-16 season. And even if he does sign an extension, he'd just end up shouldering more pressure on the heels of a new contract.
Has he earned such a deal yet? If so, it's only because of his enduringly tantalizing upside.
Drummond has been good, but the Pistons desperately need him to be great.
Lessen the Offensive Predictability
Drummond has been an elite roll man ever since entering the NBA. Thanks to his size and ridiculous levels of athleticism, he's always been able to set a screen, cut toward the hoop, rise and catch the ensuing lob before slamming it through the basket for an easy two points.
But beyond that, there's not much to write home about.
Drummond averaged 13.5 points per game in 2013-14 while knocking down 62.3 percent of his shots from the field. This past season, he scored 0.3 more during his average contest but earned only a 51.4 field-goal percentage—numbers that rose during the second half of the season after a slow start.
The big man's range is increasing ever so slightly, but the same can't be said about his effectiveness when lofting up shots that aren't right around the rim. Below you can see the percentage of his looks that came from each zone throughout his career:
Obviously, the biggest changes have come around the hoop.
He's stopped getting to the rim quite as often and is instead settling for—and attempting to create—looks from between three and 10 feet. If he can make them, that's sometimes a positive, indicating he can help unclog the interior a bit more.
But that's not exactly the case, as you can ascertain by looking at his shooting percentages from each zone:
There are a few problems here.
Drummond isn't converting at the hoop quite as often. He's taking more shots from outside the restricted area, but his mediocre shooting percentage from between three and 10 feet in 2013-14 now feels a bit fluky. His range doesn't extend beyond the paint, and the only shot he's made from outside of 10 feet in his entire career was a random turnaround three-point heave at the end of the shot clock against the Denver Nuggets during his rookie season.
All of these issues can be attributed to the exact same thing.
Drummond has grown predictable. Defenders immediately know he's working to utilize his patented turnaround hook with his right hand, and they can prepare for it. They aren't scared that he's going to use his left hand at any point during a game, and they have no need to prepare for finesse moves other than the occasional drop step.
In fact, as Zach Lowe explained for Grantland back in November, they can leave him in single coverage and make it even more impossible for him to use one of the weakest parts of his game—his passing:
"Defenses don't respect him yet, which makes the process both simpler and trickier in different ways. He’s not drawing a lot of hard double-teams. He gets work a lot in single coverage, which is nice, but it also means Drummond rarely gets an easy passing lane to an open teammate.
"
All it takes is developing a few more go-to moves or learning how to thrive in one other area, and that hasn't happened yet. He showed flashes during the second half of the season and was far more engaged on the offensive end, but the consistency isn't there yet. And even when he is scoring, he's not dangerous enough to command double-teams and make the marksmen around him even more dangerous.
Perhaps Detroit's decision to hire a shooting coach will help. At the very least, it should ensure Drummond never again hits only 38.9 percent of his free throws.
All the same, this summer has to be spent in a gym, drilling the post moves over and over...and over and over.
This Connecticut product isn't magically going to develop into a stretch 5, but the predictability has to go away.
Defensive Development
Drummond should be a Defensive Player of the Year candidate, but he's merely a decent point-preventer who occasionally looks great at this stage of his career.
His hands are fantastic—active and quick, which help him wreak havoc in passing lanes and swipe the ball away from some unsuspecting ball-handlers. But his feet are often atrocious, as he can get caught out of position or simply fail to rotate and contest a shot he could've altered.
"He needs to be a more aggressive defender for us moving forward if we're going to be good," head coach Stan Van Gundy said about his starting center in late March, per MLive.com's David Mayo. "He and I sat down and watched film today of the number of shots against Philly that went unchallenged at the rim, or weakly challenged."
As Mayo explains, this is due to two problems: Drummond doesn't always know where he's supposed to be, and a complete lack of consistency in the lineups has left him operating without confidence in the positioning of his teammates.
The big man himself elaborated, via Mayo:
"It comes down to trust, knowing that there's somebody behind you when I do go. Everybody's not perfect in this league. Whenever I do go, sometimes, people forget. We've all got to learn each other.
All of us have been on different teams, and a lot of different changes, so our defensive schemes consistently change. We're going to keep getting better. But the defense is going to come.
"
Defensive cohesiveness can often be just as important as the talent of the individual stoppers, and that simply hasn't been present in the Motor City. The constant personnel shifting and changes on the sideline are partly to blame, but the onus also has to be on Drummond to improve his communication and gain comfort yelling out signals to his teammates.
He's not yet a leader, and he needs to be on this end of the floor.
So forget about the surface statistics. It's great that this big man averages 0.9 steals and 1.9 blocks while hauling in 8.1 defensive rebounds during his typical game. Those are impressive numbers, but they mask the fact that he could be even more impactful.
NBA.com's SportVU databases show that Drummond is facing 8.9 shots per game at the rim and allowing his opponent to shoot 48 percent in that area. Among the 83 players who attempt to stop at least five close-range shots per contest, 24 are more stingy.
For a player with this many elite physical tools, that's not good enough, especially when quicker rotations and more focus would make him so much more effective. On top of that, his habits of delayed switches and improper positioning lead to the Pistons allowing extra points.
With him on the court, Detroit allowed 108.2 points per 100 possessions, and the defensive rating was a more respectable 104.3 when he was on the bench. This isn't a fluke, either. His team gave up an additional 3.4 points per 100 possessions with him playing during the 2013-14 campaign, and 0.4 more throughout his rookie season.
Plays like the above are fantastic, but it's not the glamorous possession-ending moments Drummond must focus on. It's the nitty-gritty details on this side of the court that must see significant improvement.
Fortunately for the Pistons, Drummond seems intent on proving himself this offseason. He's trying to get in the best shape of his life, and as he told Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press, he's working to become more of a leader:
"It's just a mentality. I just have the mind-set right now that I don't think has been there before. I told myself this is a big summer for me. Obviously, everybody knows it's my contract year, but it's not even because of that.
I'm just so tired of losing that it comes down to me and what I'm doing on the floor and that if I'm not in the best condition, the best playing shape, I can't do nothing for my team.
I'm willing to take this summer real seriously to really become a better leader and show everybody that I'm here to get the program where it needs to be.
"
That's exactly what the Pistons would like to hear.
But actions speak louder than words, as the saying goes. It's time for him to prove those sentiments aren't empty, and that means taking all the time necessary to shore up his obvious weaknesses.
Fulfilling the promise of a prom date is fine now, while the NBA playoffs are still in progress. A 21-year-old is allowed to take a break after playing through a grueling season of professional basketball. Anyone is, for that matter.
But the break has to be a short-lived one.
If Drummond is going to live up to the massive hype that's accompanied him for the last few years, he has a lot of improving left to do.
Note: All stats, unless otherwise indicated, come from Basketball-Reference.com.
Adam Fromal covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @fromal09.
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