Us Cleveland Cavaliers fans seem to be well aware of what Andre Drummond can provide.
During this now-past season for Andre Drummond, he averaged a career-best when it comes to scoring with 17.7 points per game, and he’s clearly a formidable presence on the interior. Most of that production from Drummond came with the Detroit Pistons, of course, but Drummond did show some more of that interior presence with the Cleveland Cavaliers following his arrival near the 2020 trade deadline.
In his brief eight-game stint with the Wine and Gold in 2019-20, Drummond had 17.5 points per outing, to go with 11.1 rebounds, 1.5 steals and 1.4 blocks per game. Granted, he did take some time to seemingly get going, and defensively, Drummond did have issues a bit against some offenses.
Drummond had a net rating of minus-15.2 in his Cleveland stint, too, but with the given circumstances/new team mid-season, I’m giving him slack. And he did again seem to get more comfortable going into the novel coronavirus-induced hiatus and what was ultimately the conclusion of 2019-20 for Cleveland.
Anyhow, what is evident involving Drummond, is that he again is a formidable interior presence/low-post threat offensively, a player that’s an instinctive team defender on the inside and a heck of a rebounder.
If he does eventually pick up his $28.8 million player option for next season, which reportedly highly likely, the Cavs will know what Dre brings as an interior player and hard screener/roller. Also, at the time going into the hiatus, Drummond actually was second in the league in total steals, which was impressive for a big.
Albeit swinging back to the rebounding element, it’s apparent that Dre, who averaged 15.2 boards per game during this now-past season from the Cavs’ perspective, is perhaps the game’s best rebounder.
A recent Cleveland Cavaliers post highlights Drummond’s dominance on the glass over the years, in that realm.
Drummond is clearly right up there as feasibly the NBA’s best rebounder, and a post by Cavs.com’s Jimmy Longo on Tuesday further drove home how Dre has been so dominant on the glass over the years.
A few quotes from that piece from Longo jumped out to me in that regard about Andre Drummond’s capability on the glass, and that’s involved both sides of it, too. Here was the first quote involving Longo’s “By the Numbers” piece highlighting Drummond, who is the featured player across the Cleveland Cavaliers social media platforms this week.
"“407 … double-doubles that Andre Drummond has totaled since 2012-13 – leading the NBA over that stretch by 83 games over his next-closest competitors, Nikola Vucevic and Russell Westbrook.”"
It’s clear as day that since Drummond has been in the Association, that above 2012-13 campaign with Detroit, one could count on him to get those double-doubles. Longo pointing out how Drummond has won three straight rebounding titles and four in the last five seasons echoes that sentiment as well.
So what was the next bit of info that stood out from Longo’s piece from Tuesday in relation to Drummond? This next one further stresses how since he’s been in the league, Drummond has again paced the NBA in rebounding, in this sense, in total rebounds.
"“8, 288 … total rebounds Andre Drummond has grabbed since entering the league in 2012-13, easily the most in the NBA over that span – 2,098 more than the Cavs all-time leader, LeBron James (6,190).”"
So what’s the overall takeaway from this piece from Longo then? It frankly just hammers home that Drummond is a proven commodity at this point, and that’s in the rebounding department, and factoring in both ends of the floor.
And Drummond has improved in the post in recent seasons, which has resulted in better scoring production, to pair with him being a constant lob threat. For players such as Darius Garland, Collin Sexton, Kevin Love and Kevin Porter Jr., for instance, that should give them a quality threat to go to for high percentage looks in settled offense, assuming Drummond picks up his player option for next season.
Now, Drummond is not a shooting threat, and us Cleveland Cavaliers fans are well aware of that. I also question if Drummond, who is very limited away from the paint defensively, can be a true long-term fit, combining that and the lack of shooting outside of close to the rim.
That said, maybe the Cavs and Drummond, and him and Kevin Love, for instance, do end up working well together next season? It’s tough to say on that for now in a larger sample size, let alone if Drummond will eventually sign a long-term deal with Cleveland, but one thing is certain, as this post highlights.
The Cavs know that Drummond is a constant double-double player that can carve out space inside and rebounds with the best of them.