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Andre Drummond
The NBA trade deadline is about 48 hours away and the rumor mill is starting to heat up.
Tuesday’s gossip involves the Detroit Pistons possibly striking a deal with the Boston Celtics, perhaps involving Andre Drummond.
The Celtics currently occupy the #2 seed in the Eastern Conference with a sterling mark of 37-20. They trail LeBron James and the Cavs by three games for the top spot. Boston has Isaiah Thomas to make big shots in the fourth quarter, and a host of guys that complement him in the scoring department: Avery Bradley, Al Horford, Jae Crowder, and Marcus Smart. Former Piston Jonas Jerebko even provides 10-20 minutes of energy and 3-point shooting on most nights.
But the general consensus around the NBA is that Boston needs more bulk. Kelly Olynyk is more of a perimeter-based big man, and Horford tends to float that way, too. The thought is that Drummond would solidify the Celtics up front and provide a paint-presence that they are currently without.
But what critical players would a contender like the Celtics part with in the midst of a possible championship run? That’s the thing. Danny Ainge, Boston’s GM, shrewdly made a deal with Brooklyn years ago that allows the Celtics the option to swap 1st-round draft positions with the lowly Nets this summer.
The Nets' Lottery Pick
So if Boston wants to make Drummond a Celtic, it could fork over that potential Nets’ lottery pick, which could very well be #1 overall. The Nets are currently lugging around a win-loss of 9 and 47, and they will very soon clinch the worst record in all of basketball. (Next worse is the Suns at 18-39.)
It seems like a stretch that Boston would be willing to part with such a valuable asset for a player as polarizing as Drummond, but if they see him as some missing link to an NBA title, then the trade suddenly starts to make quite a bit of sense from their end.
As for the Pistons? I’d say it would be a slam dunk. Sure, there was quite a bit of hope that the Drummond-Reggie Jackson duo would be the backbone of the Pistons’ roster for years to come. But in a relatively short period of time, that narrative has dried up. The team does not seem to respond to Jackson as its leader and point guard, and Drummond has more or less proven in his five years of NBA service that what you see is what you get.
He's not going to transform into some polished offensive player, and the wish that he would up his free throw percentage to something respectable has flown out the door.
He’s a good offensive rebounder, he can roll to the basket for alley-oops, and he’s also fairly tall. If that less-than-thrilling profile could somehow net Stan Van Gundy a top-three pick, he better go uncap his pen, get ready to sign and initial wherever necessary, and power up the fax machine for some emergency correspondence.
No Reason to Pass
The Pistons have 25 games left. They're 27-30, putting them in that nightmarish 8th-seed in the Eastern Conference.
The chance is still there to possibly move as high as #6, but such flimsy playoff status should not be any reason to pass on a potential trade for a more promising future.
Not to mention, I’m not certain the Pistons get a whole lot worse by shipping Drummond off. Van Gundy smartly filled the backup center spot with rugged, offensive-minded players like Aron Baynes and Boban Marjanovic. Pull Drummond off this team, split his minutes up between those two behemoths, and I doubt the W-L record is significantly impacted.
The NBA has changed immeasurably these last number of years. No longer are 7-footers necessary to a team’s success, and if said player can’t be a weapon on pick-and-pop plays either, he becomes a true offensive liability. For all intents and purposes, Drummond is a hoops dinosaur.
If the Boston Celtics want to get in on that party and try to turn back time, they are more than welcome; just so long as they fork over that juicy Brooklyn Nets 1st-round pick in the process.
