Andre Drummond to miss 4-6 weeks with back injury

Here’s an unfortunate follow-up to the earlier post about Andre Drummond missing shootaround prior to tonight’s game against the Spurs.

So, that’s not good. Drummond is expected to miss between four and six weeks with a fractured tailbone. Vincent Goodwill of the Detroit News tweeted earlier tonight that Drummond will be in a custom brace, and that team physician Ben Paolucci said there shouldn’t be any residual effects.

The good thing is that Drummond avoids surgery and will just have to rehab the tailbone. The bad is that these sometimes-tough-to-watch Pistons just got harder to watch for the next four to six weeks. If you were among the few who felt the team — with the recent addition of Jose Calderon — could squeak into the playoffs, you probably saw those dreams probably came to a halt tonight.

On the bright side, this gives the Pistons a chance to see what they’ve got in little-used center Slava Kravtsov, who has seen an increase in playing time with Drummond nursing his injury during the last two games.

EDIT: Multiple sources have confirmed the injury to be a stress fracture of the fifth lumbar vertebra in his back.