Andre Drummond Is Veteran BBall Paul

We might need to start calling him Basketball Andre.

To be honest, it’s kinda hard to believe Andre Drummond was on this Sixers team already. Not all that long ago either: He was here as recently as February 2022, which means he was here long enough and recently to (conceivably) see Jackass Forever in Philly theaters with Furkan Korkmaz and Shake Milton. But it doesn’t feel like it — partly because he was here for less than a full regular season (and no postseason), partly because we’re seeing so much more of him now with Joel Embiid still out till question mark, and partly because he seems like a fairly different player now than he did when he was first here. It really feels more like we’re getting to know him for the first time.

And the player we’re (re-)acquainting ourselves with now is… well, he’s kind of a wild man. I think we always sorta knew that to be the case with Drummond, but it’s one thing understanding that conceptually and another thing actually watching him playing 30+ minutes a night. Drum was brought back here mostly to be a stabilizing force in our frontcourt, but “stability” is hardly the first word that comes to mind when watching his decision-making process; he seems much more like an agent of chaos than one of order.

I don’t say any of this as a bad thing, of course. Just to say that there’s a lot more BBall Paul in Andre Drummond than I remembered — and that means I love him pretty much immediately and infinitely.

Of course, before I get into the similarities I should qualify that the one way in which they are fundamentally different is that Andre Drummond's rebounding is supremely reliable. That makes him different than BBall not just because the latter was merely above-average on the boards, but because there was really no one thing you could consistently rely on BBall for; he always brought the energy but his on-court production was always at the mercy of timing, his opponents, the moon cycle, whatever. But no matter what else Drummond's box score ends up looking like, you know he's going to rebound; I've never been so casually confident about the Sixers being able to finish off possessions as I am when he and his suction-cup mitts are under the basket. It's a very big deal for this team, and an important thing to be able to trust him about as a player. 

But it's the only thing we can really trust about Andre -- otherwise, his play is as erratic and prone to going haywire as our dearly departed BBall. He doesn't really have the moves or the overwhelming physicality to score down low, but he still attempts to dominate with both finesse and power in the post. He's a solid enough pick man, but his rolls don't ever seem to go anywhere productive. He's a pretty good lob threat but he definitely has a tendency to get blocked by the rim. He jogs back on defense, he ball watches, and he's slow on switches (if he even gets to switching in the first place). And his passing... well, like Virgil Solozzo, he really just ain't that clever. Take a look at this pass Dan Olinger was kind enough to clip for me:

Incredible offensive rebound here from Drum - corralls it with his weak hand, controls it on the way down despite two Pacers trying to wrest it away, fights to maintain clean position with it and earn the Sixers a new possession. A-level stuff. And then he throws the ball right to Benedict Mathurin. It's not just that the pass doesn't work, it's that it's impossible to even tell what pass he was trying to execute: There's no Sixer even remotely close to the ball at the time of Mathurin's interception, and Caleb Martin -- the only player in the general direction of where Drummond was throwing -- is nowhere near to being in frame, apparently all the way out at half court. It was an absolutely bewildering pass attempt, far less defensible than even that Bo Nix pass between three Broncos receivers that went viral a couple weeks ago. And he's had at least one or two like it every game for the Sixers so far. 

Then, of course, there's the jump-shooting. Like our beloved BBall, and the great majority of skilled but offensively limited big men in hoops history, Andre Drummond believes he is secretly Dirk Nowitzki, held back only by the prejudicial views of his coach and teammates and the lack of imagination in modern NBA offense. So whenever he gets the chance, he's hoisting the damn thing. On the national broadcast against the Bucks, Mike Breen even kinda called him out for constantly finding himself with the ball late in the shot clock at a point where he would have to shoot it, and accused him of setting up the situation so that he'd have the proper excuse to get shots up -- allegations that I have to imagine were 100% accurate. The funniest possession of yesterday's game against the Pacers was probably at the end of the second quarter, when Drummond captured a Pacers airball with four seconds left, blatantly disregarded Kyle Lowry's nearby calls for the ball, and put up a three-quarters-court heave with nearly three whole seconds left on the game clock. (The punchline, of course, was that it nearly went in, hitting off the backboard and unfortunately caroming off the front rim; Drum almost certainly believes he'll get it next time.) 

And speaking of the Pacers game -- the Sixers won it and Drummond was one of the biggest reasons why. Those vacuum hands are brilliant on the boards -- he grabbed 17 of them for the game -- but they can also be deadly on the perimeter, as Indiana found out in the fourth quarter when Drummond helped pry the ball loose on consecutive possessions in the final minute to start Sixers possessions the other way, capturing them a three-point lead late that should've been enough to secure the win. After Tyrese Haliburton sunk a stupid double-clutch three to send the game to overtime, Drummond had a rough start to the OT period, leaving Myles Turner and Haliburton alone for back-to-back jumpers -- but he secured a couple huge rebounds, got a deflection that nearly resulted in another final-minute steal, and helped keep Turner from helping on Maxey drives with his threats as a lob man and offensive rebounder, allowing Maxey to score key buckets at the rim. 

That's Basketball Andre for you, Large Adult Father of BBall Paul. He's got the veneer of veteranniness as a virtue of his 31 years of age, 11 seasons of NBA experience and more career rebounds than any active player besides LeBron, but really he wants to fuck shit up. He might win a game for you on one possession and then cost you it the next. He'll have two Play of the Game candidates and three bits earmarked by TNT interns for Shaqtin a Fool consideration. He is big and bold and beautiful and I am very happy to watch him for 30 minutes a night until Joel Embiid gets back. And when Jo does get back, dear lord Nick Nurse please give us those Embiid and Drummond twin-towers minutes together that we've been cruelly denied in years past; they need it, we need it, the BBall legacy deserves it. 

---

Andrew Unterberger writes for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez, as part of the 'If Not, Pick Will Convey as Two Second-Rounders' section of the site. You can follow Andrew on Twitter @AUGetoffmygold and can also read him at Billboard. 

Andrew's writing is brought to you by Kinetic Skateboarding! Not only the Ricky's approved skate shop, but the best place to get Chucks, Vans, any apparel. Use code "DAVESILVER" for 9.1% off your order.