#2: Cavs 5 Andre Drummond
Andre Drummond has a lot to prove this season, which will be of utmost importance for his future. I fully expect him to come in and give it his absolute all to prove a lot of people wrong.
Andre was traded for pennies on the dollar to Cleveland from the Detroit Pistons back in February to a team that was already struggling a lot. It was viewed as a risk-free trade for the Cavs, since they did not give up much, in what was most notably a 2023 second-round pick, for an expiring contract.
Once upon a time, Andre Drummond was a much more dominant, premier center in this league. He can still execute his style of play really well, but the traditional style of the center position has slowly faded out.
Drummond is set to be an unrestricted free agent next offseason and could likely be dangled in the trade market since his expensive expiring contract could help the Cleveland Cavaliers potentially gain assets from a team looking to unload longer-termed deals. Hopefully, a future draft pick would be attached in a possible deal down the road, feasibly near the 2021 deadline, anyhow.
But this means the clock to prove where he is at starts immediately, and his role as a rebounding, rim-protecting and finishing center is all his to start the season for Cleveland and do that well. He will, too, and let’s not discount that Drummond has led the league in rebounding four times in the past five seasons, and did with 15.2 per game in 2019-20.
We’ll have to see regarding his fit maybe looking onward with pieces such as Sexton, Garland, Kevin Porter Jr. and Kevin Love, among others, though.