Detroit Pistons: The curious career free-fall of Andre Drummond

The career of Andre Drummond has taken a curious turn since he left the Detroit Pistons.

It’s hard to believe that the center is still only 27-years-old, as it seems like he was manning the paint for the Pistons for about 800 years.

He made a few All-Star appearances for the Pistons and had a really great stretch from 2017-2020 where he led the league in rebounds three times and averaged as many as 17.7 points and 1.7 blocks after signing a massive contract to stay in Detroit.

But the Pistons were never very good while Drummond was there, as he is clearly not a player you should be building a roster around.

Watching how things have gone for him since is symbolic of where the NBA is headed, as centers like Drummond are soon to be a relic from the past.

Detroit Pistons: When the Pistons traded Andre Drummond to Cleveland it was the beginning of the end

There were some insane fans of the Detroit Pistons who wanted Detroit to extend Drummond another max deal (did I say insane loud enough?) and were then disappointed when the Pistons traded him to Cleveland for the corpses of Brandon Knight and John Henson along with a distant 2nd round pick.

This shows you what the rest of the league thought of Drummond, as there was no market for him and the Pistons were actually lucky to get anything of value. And things just kept getting worse for Drummond.

Andre Drummond was the most hated man on the Lakers

Cleveland quickly admitted their mistake and bought Drummond’s massive final year out and allowed him to sign with the Lakers.

I thought Drummond would finally thrive, as he wasn’t being asked to do anything other than rebound and block shots as a role player, which is probably what he should have been all along.

Drummond started all 21 games he played for the Lakers and put up the worst stats since his rookie season while getting blamed by many Lakers’ fans for the team’s lack of success.

The Lakers had no interest in running it back with Drummond and he was replaced by Dwight Howard, who is eight years older.

Andre Drummond joins the enemy in Philadelphia

After not getting much action in free agency, Drummond chose to sign a veteran’s minimum deal to join the Philadelphia 76ers as a backup to Joel Embiid.

This can’t sit well with Drummond, who used to routinely get schooled by Embiid both on the court and on social media, where the two had a long-running beef.

He now has to play off the bench behind Embiid, which is an odd pairing, especially considering he’s replacing Dwight Howard, who is replacing him in Los Angeles.

To recap, Andre Drummond went from a starting center making $27 million a season ago to a backup who had to settle for a minimum deal.

This shows how much the league has changed, as teams no longer value rebounding that much and prefer bigs who are able to switch on the perimeter and guard quicker guys.

The league left Andre Drummond behind, and the Detroit Pistons were lucky to get out when they did.

I wish Drummond well, but centers like him are a dying breed and we may see him taking his services to Shanghai before long.