SACRAMENTO, CA - MARCH 19: Andre Drummond #0 of the Detroit Pistons warms up against the Sacramento Kings on March 19, 2018 at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, California. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2018 NBAE (Photo by Rocky Widner/NBAE via Getty Images) /
The Detroit Pistons are going to need Andre Drummond to improve in select areas to help the team. Here are three things he can improve on!
Andre Drummond and the Detroit Pistons end their season with a disappointing 8th seed in the eastern conference. They finished with a 41-41 record and found themselves matched up against the team with the best record in the entire NBA.
No not the Golden State Warriors; the Milwaukee Bucks. The Bucks made quick work of the Pistons. Not only did they sweep the season series against the Pistons. But they also swept the first round match-up against the Pistons.
Andre Drummond was awesome during the regular season. He played great basketball to start the season. And finished the last 35 games of the season by playing excellent basketball. He was arguably the main reason why the Pistons were competing for a top 8 playoff spot and not a top 8 lottery pick.
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And best of all, his defense was at it’s best of his career. He was playing great defense by blocking shots, playing the passing lanes perfectly, and deflecting loose balls.
Andre Drummond finished 14th in the entire NBA in deflections per game with 2.9 per night. He also ranked 1st in that department out all the centers in the league.
All of that in a great season for him. But then the playoffs arrived. He would be matched up against Brook Lopez and likely MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo. A terrible match-up for the Pistons and Drummond.
Brook Lopez is a certified Pistons’ killer. And Giannis is going to be the MVP of the league. Both players absolutely abused Drummond and the Pistons. And the Bucks game planned perfectly against Drummond. It was easy to for the Bucks to game plan against Drummond. They were without Blake Griffin for two of the games. And the other two games Blake was clearly unhealthy and the Bucks did not have to worry about Griffin beating them by himself.
Like every other player in the league, Drummond can find ways to improve.
Coax players into fouling him. Andre Drummond finished the season with 412 free throw attempts. It is his highest of his career since the 2015-16 season where he was constantly hacked by other teams. This season he was rarely purposely fouled by the opposing team. This is due to his much improved free throw shooting. He shot 60.5 percent from the free throw line last year and 59 percent this season. If Drummond can improve on himself into the 70 percent mark, he could find a way to get to the free throw line more often to improve on his offense. He’s never going to get the amount of free throws Joel Embiid gets. But getting two extra free throws per night would drastically improve his offense.
Passing from the paint. Andre Drummond showed his potential of being a good passing big man. In the 2017-18 season, Drummond averaged a career high 3 assists per game. He got those assists from dribble hand-offs sitting at the top of the key and backdoor cuts by the wing/guard players. But what if Drummond improves on his post passing? Similar to Blake Griffin, he can draw in some defense; leaving a wide open shooter out on the perimeter. Drummond showed signs of post/interior passing in the last month of the season during his excellent stretch. If he’s able to draw in defenders and pass out of the post; he’ll be a tough cover against any team.
Getting the casual fan on his side. Andre Drummond isn’t the most liked player in the NBA. Plenty of casual Pistons fans don’t like him or his personality. We even had a certain group of Pistons fans thinking Ed Davis is better. They watch a couple of bad games of him and assume the worst. “He’s lazy. Why can’t he be a great defender like Ben Wallace. He’s soft and makes too much money.” This is what the casual Pistons fan bring up when talking about Drummond. And even the casual NBA fan bring up the same talk when watching a National TV game where Andre Drummond and the Pistons are getting completely torn apart; specifically the games versus the Bucks in the playoffs and against Joel Embiid. But Drummond had a great season. And in the last 35 games of the season, the Pistons were a net rating per 100 possessions of 10.6 when Andre Drummond was on the court and -11.4 when he was off the court. The analytics started to show that Drummond is a really good player that impacts the team’s wins and losses. This was a huge knock on Drummond by the casual NBA fan. Doing this for an entire season would shutdown a lot of the talk.
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If Drummond can do these three things; he will most definitely look much improved.
