Mason Plumlee is better for the Detroit Pistons than Drummond was

Mason Plumlee has been better for the Detroit Pistons than Andre Drummond was. Hear me out.

Whoa. I know, the title is crazy, right? Whoever wrote this article must be nuts. Or maybe it makes just the smallest amount of sense.

The best way to measure if a player is good or not is not points per game, or turnover to assist ratio, or rebounds. The best ways are Player Efficiency Rating, wins, and how well each player fits on their given team.

So let’s break this down. In under 40 games with the Detroit Pistons, Mason Plumlee is already better than Drummond. How is that even possible? Drummond has a PER of 20 compared to Plumlee’s 17, Drummond scored more points and grabbed more rebounds. Their field goal percentage is about the same, and the only category Plumlee beats Drummond is assists.

Drummond is one of Detroit’s greatest centers of all time. That’s the issue. The Detroit Pistons spent seven+  seasons with Drummond as the centerpiece, and they have nothing to show for it. No playoff runs, no Conference Finals, and certainly no banners. Drummond was both too good and not good enough.

Detroit Pistons: Building around Drummond was a mistake

What does that mean? How is this possible?

In the modern NBA, it’s difficult to build around a big man. Embiid has help, and so does Jokic. Bam Adebayo isn’t the best player on his team. Dallas, San Antonio, and Boston have all won titles with big men as their best players (Dirk, Duncan, and KG) but they had a lot of supporting cast to help them get there. The last time a team made the Finals with a center as the best player and no help was the 2008-09 Magic, around Dwight Howard.

Drummond was at one point a top-five center, but he was just good enough that the Pistons couldn’t afford to build with him, and he was not as good as prime Dwight, so he couldn’t lead a team single-handily.

Mason Plumlee, on the other hand, is perfectly serviceable, a decent passer, and won’t be a centerpiece but won’t be a liability either. He can step back and allow Saddiq Bey and  Jerami Grant (Killian Hayes soon, too) to do their thing and score, and he is perfectly able to grab rebounds and kick it back out to the open man. Plus, he shoots more than 50 percent from the stripe so you can leave him in during the final minutes.

This isn’t a knock against Drummond, it’s just that he was not the player we should have built around. Neither is Plumlee, but we already know that. We don’t need seven years to know that we need to chase other assets and get good draft picks. Drummond was so good that he carried us to mediocrity, but that made sure we never went anywhere else.

Even if the Pistons do get really good really fast, Plumlee is serviceable on a good team. Before coming here, he put up decent minutes on a good Denver team.

Building around a center makes no sense unless that center is a generational talent. Maybe I got ahead of myself, though. Drummond is a better player than Plumlee, but Plumlee is a better fit for the Pistons, and probably would be a better fit on most teams.