Andre Drummond is ELITE and proving doubters wrong

Detroit Pistons center Andre Drummond has been critiqued unfairly for years. He’s always been good, but now; his play has been so elite it’s impossible to say otherwise.

The Detroit Pistons gave Andre Drummond a max contract in the summer of 2016. The Pistons were coming off their first playoff appearance since 2008 and Drummond had just been to his first All Star game and was selected to the ALL-NBA team.

Since then, fans have critiqued Drummond to an extraordinarily unfair amount.

We’ve heard ridiculous takes, suggesting role players are better or more valuable than Drummond. Fans have refused to update their opinions on Drummond’s motor; still holding onto the opinion that Drummond is lazy and gives no effort.

Both of these are just completely incorrect.

Fans love to compare Drummond to a roll men across the NBA, such as Clint Capela, DeAndre Jordan, Steven Adams and such; but yet, Drummond has not been used the same as any of these big men. Drummond has had much more responsibilities in the Pistons offense than of these players have in their own.

This is resembled in Stan Van Gundy’s last season with the Pistons, where Drummond set a career high in assists (3.0).

At the beginning of this year, it was clear Dwane Casey was either struggling with how to use Drummond or Reggie Jackson. But as many of us Pistons guys know, if you’re hurting one of them, you’re also hurting the other.

You see, the big men listed above all have MVP caliber point guards feeding them baskets: Russell Westbrook, Chris Paul, and James Harden. Jordan had the luxury of playing with Paul and also started the season playing with rookie sensation Luka Doncic.

Those big men don’t have to worry about their point guard. Once it became clear earlier in the season that Casey wasn’t using Jackson or Drummond correctly, it also became very clear we’d see Drummond have to create much more for himself.

At one point in January, Drummond was assisted on the same amount of his baskets that Joel Embiid was. Embiid is of course a much better offensive player, and is capable of creating his baskets at a high volume; Drummond, however, is not.

So, why was Drummond being used this way?

And instead of wondering about that and critiquing Casey for using him this way, fans took the lazy route.

They blamed Drummond for everything.

They didn’t care that the Drummond-Blake Griffin tandem was by far and away the Pistons most effective tandem of the season, blowing opposing front courts out the water(+2.2 net rating from beginning of season till January 15th).

Anyways. You get the point.

Drummond has faced much criticism for being lazy and inefficient. A man who has been the rebounding champion twice, on his way to his third, and has averaged near five offensive rebounds for six straight season is being called lazy.

What a joke.

However, Casey figured things out. He has started to use Jackson more in the pick and roll, and has used Drummond has more of a roll man than ever before this season.

There have been quotes from Casey suggesting he couldn’t trust Jackson at the beginning of the year because he was not healthy, and Jackson has talked about how he had to lie to himself about his body being 100 percent.

Maybe this was the reason for having to wait this long to see Drummond flourish.

Whatever the reason is, Drummond has been ELITE.

Since he returned from a concussion on January 25th, Drummond has been absolutely destroying whatever was in his path. He’s averaging 21.1 points, 15.7 rebounds, two blocks, and 2.1 steals. All the while shooting 62 percent from the field and 70 percent from the free throw line.

Through the first 44 games before then, Drummond was shooting 49 percent from the field and 52 percent from the charity stripe.

In his first 44 games, Drummond was only assisted on 54 percent of his buckets. Let’s compare that to some other guys.

Marc Gasol– 77 percent.

Jarrett Allen – 83 percent.

Jordan- 73 percent.

Capela- 80 percent.

Get the picture?

Now, let’s compare that to his last 16 games since returning from his concussion; the games in which he has been absolutely one of the very best big men in the league and has made centers like Karl-Anthony Towns his children.

In the last 16 games, Drummond has been assisted on 65 frieken’ percent of his buckets.

That’s an 11 percent increase on what he was being assisted on beforehand.

So, you make it to where Drummond doesn’t have to create as much for himself and actually gets to play like a roll man, and he’s damn near better than almost every center in the league. Mind you, he still isn’t being assisted to the amount of the guys above.

Literally, just make it a tad(!) easier on Drummond and he’s immediately better than all of those guys by a wide margin. Now along with that, imagine Drummond with an ALL-NBA point guard like those guys; he would be an absolute demon.

Oh, and that’s just the offense.

Drummond has been so insanely absurd on defense the last 16 games, that we have people (wrongly) suggesting he get some Defensive Player of the Year consideration.

This season, Drummond has added yet another 100+ steal and 100+ block season to his resume. That would make it 4 straight seasons of such ludicrous stats.

The next closest of active players with those amount of seasons?

Two seasons.

This, of course, has led to extreme success for the Detroit Pistons.

The Detroit Pistons are 11-5 in the last 16 games, and have clawed their way from 10th seed in the East to sixth seed.

And over the last 20 games, the Detroit Pistons have the best starting lineup in the entire NBA.  The Jackson,

Bruce Brown

,

Wayne Ellington

, Griffin, Drummond starting lineup has a net rating of +17.3. The next closest is the Los Angeles Clippers starting lineup at +15.4.

During this stretch by the way, Drummond has been, by far and away, the Detroit Pistons best player and it isn’t even close. The most interesting part about for the team is that Griffin has struggled over these games, especially recently.

Over the last seven games, Griffin is shooting 39 percent from the field and 34 percent from three. This is Griffin’s first stretch of struggle this season and probably has to do with some fatigue. It’s not a big issue, everyone has bad stretches and Griffin was damn near a God for the Pistons in their first 50 games.

However, it shows what this team can do when Drummond is being used correctly. Of course, Drummond deserves an enormous amount of credit. He’s gotten better and has improved himself every year in this league, and it isn’t solely the fact he’s being used correctly.

But, it sure as hell is close to 80/20 in favor of being used right.

The point of the matter is, Andre Drummond is ELITE. And if you’re not a Detroit Pistons fan and you’re reading this, I can say with about a 90 percent chance that he’s better than YOUR  big man.

Yes, that’s how great Drummond is.

And the best part?

He’s shutting all of his *expletive* critics up.

*Editors note: Yes, I used all clips from last games win over the Timberwolves because Drummond extended his four year long beat down of CAT (get it get it) to last game and I’ll continue to have as much fun with it as possible*