LA Clippers Pass or Pursue? Andre Drummond
Probably the crown jewel (if you can call him that) of the buyout class is Andre Drummond, and the LA Clippers are interested. The 27 year old big man hasn’t played for the Cavaliers in a month as they’ve figured out his future, but it seems no trade offers materialized, and he’ll be bought out.
There are plenty of warts to Drummond’s game. He’s a painfully inefficient scorer, boasting the 11th worst effective field goal percentage in the league. If he’s not dunking, then defenses are happy to let him shoot, and this year he averaged a career high in field goal attempts. It’s nice to see that he’s averaging 17.5 points, but doing that on 15 field goal attempts as a center isn’t good. Like, at all.
Statistically, he’s marginally worse than LaMarcus Aldridge on defense. The gap between how efficiently opponents score when he’s off versus when he’s on is larger than LMA’s gap. But I’m willing to give Drummond the tiniest benefit of the doubt that I wasn’t willing to give Aldridge.
Drummond’s played for Detroit and Cleveland in his career. Not exactly Portland and San Antonio. He’s not playing for a defensive mind like Pop, and he’s been in situations where he’s been allowed to take as many shots as he wants, to the detriment of the team.
Now, he’s 27 years old and this is his 9th season. It’s very possible that his habits are built in at this point and nothing’s changing him. But I can’t help asking: “What if they’re not?”
A big reason I passed on LaMarcus Aldridge as an LA Clipper was that, outside of his poor defense, he’s not providing anything elite. The same cannot be said for Andre Drummond, who has averaged under 15 rebounds per 36 minutes only three times in his career, one of which was last year when he only played 8 games.
In the 25 games he played this year, he averaged 16.8 rebounds per 36 minutes, including 5 offensive rebounds. The LA Clippers are pretty middle of the road at 12th in the league in total rebounds, but they’re all the way down at 19th in offensive rebounds per game.
If (and it’s a huge if) Drummond could accept a limited role and less shooting with the LA Clippers, and if his defense could be made at least average in Lue’s system (which is an even bigger if), adding one of the best rebounders in the game could help push the Clips over the top.
My general philosophy is: if the LA Clippers have the opportunity to add an elite skill, it’s worth trying.
Verdict: PURSUE
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