Finger injury hurts Andre Drummond and Detroit Pistons into lengthy recovery.

Andre Drummond and the Detroit Pistons were forced to suffer from a finger injury earlier this season. But how much did it really affect his performance?

Andre Drummond had played a poor stretch for the Detroit Pistons before missing a couple of games with a concussion injury. He couldn’t make shots, he was just about missing point-blank dunk and lay-up attempts.

Many were left to speculate whether if Drummond was doing something differently, doesn’t fit the mold of the team, or if he is just a flat-out inefficient player. Although one of those things may be true in some aspects; the thing that came to mind for me is a pinky injury.

After a dominant performance against the Los Angeles Clippers January 12th, Drummond had told the media that he had been dealing with a pinky injury.

Anyone who’s played sports; specifically basketball, knows the difficulty of playing with a finger injury. Harder to shoot, grasp the ball, and just about any contact with the injured finger can cause pain and potentially worsen the injury.

In Drummond’s case, we must figure out if he was dealing with a broken finger, fractured finger, or a jammed finger.

Type of Finger Injury

Automatically I think it’s common sense that “broken finger” could be eliminated from the discussion. A broken finger recovery time could be up to 6 weeks without basketball action and most likely sidelines the player in that time span.

And even if Drummond were to have played with a broken finger; it would have meant his recovery time was way earlier than 4 to 6  weeks while also playing. It’s super unlikely and broken finger is most definitely eliminated.

Next we move onto a fractured finger. Many players in the NBA have been put sidelined due to fractured fingers; some have played through it. On average; an NBA player usually misses 3 weeks of action with a fractured finger.

Again, if Drummond were to actually have a fractured finger; he’d most likely be sidelined for a couple of weeks for recovery. It’s highly unlikely the Pistons training staff would let him play with an injured pinky.

And last we move onto a jammed finger. If you played sports, you’ve probably received a jammed finger before. Your finger starts to swell up and turn purple. Any bending to the finger causes a good amount of pain and makes it difficult to play basketball.

Recovery time for a jammed finger on average usually takes a week. Swelling might continue after a week. But the pain is usually gone by a week. Drummond potentially could have been aggravating the finger and worsened his injury; which extended his recovery time. This is the most likely candidate of the three possibilities.

Now the question should be… How long did Drummond play with a jammed finger?

Length of injury

If you go back and watch footage; it’s almost impossible to pin point when Drummond started playing with the injury. In a stretch where it was 100 percent certain he had the injury, it looked to as if he was just playing normally. He didn’t look irritated catching the ball, dribbling, or just playing basketball in general.

Going back to the tweet earlier, Drummond pointed out that the finger got really bad during the Sacramento game. So a good starting point is somewhere around that game.

Watching film from prior games; I noticed Drummond had taped his pinky in the game versus the Los Angeles Lakers the game prior to Sacramento. So I checked the game prior to the Lakers; and his finger was not taped in the game versus San Antonio.

So with that information; I could only assume that he injured his finger sometime during the game against San Antonio and taped it up in later games.

His poor play continued all the way into the Miami game where he received the concussion injury. So assuming his pinky injury occurred during the Spurs game; its likely his best recovery time came in the 3 games he missed with the concussion injury.

He spent 10 days (7 games played in that time span) trying to recover from the injury; only to aggravate it more. And then another 8 days (0 games played in that time span) to fully recover the damage done to the pinky.

You can see in this game versus Orlando and other games during the stretch of games he played injured; Drummond missed plenty of easy opportunities at the rim.

In total, 18 days and 10 total Pistons games in that time span. Excluding the game where Drummond got injured, he averaged 11.2 points per game, 14.3 points per game, 1.5 steals per game, and 1 block per game on 41.8 percent shooting during the stretch. And the Pistons went 4-5 in the stretch losing to Sacramento twice, Washington, Utah, and the Lakers.

The injury could have gone farther back before the Spurs game. But with the little information given; I’d have to say it came during the Spurs game.