Nowadays everybody wanna talk like they got somethin’ to say but both the national media and the local fan-base seem to have forgot about Dre.
I’m not sure is you’re aware of this, but I’m going to let you in on a little secret…
(looks both ways)
Andre Drummond is having himself a helluva season.
Don’t believe me? Just look at the numbers. He’s posting a career high in scoring (17.4 PPG) along with his typically gaudy rebounding stats (a league-leading 15.4 RPG, a full 1.8 boards higher than Joel Embiid who sits at number two). He is one of two players this year to average at least 1.6 steals and 1.7 blocks per night with the other being Anthony “I’m just here so I won’t get fined” Davis.
His very respectable 53.1% on a career high 13.4 attempts would represent his highest mark since his second season where I’m pretty sure 90% of his attempts were lobs from Will Bynum.
But what about his godawful free throw shooting, you ask? Thankfully, the misery of ‘Hack-a-Drum’ is a thing of the past since he’s been able to turn a serious liability into a non-issue at a now-tolerable 58.5%. And if you really want your mind blown, look at his numbers in ‘clutch’ situations (games with a five-point difference within the last five minutes of regulation or overtime); 21-25 for a sizzling 84%!
Still not impressed? How about the fact that Andre now holds the record for the most seasons (4) of 1,000 points, 1,000 rebounds, 100 steals and 100 blocks since 1973-74 (the year they started tracking steals and blocks)? How about the fact that he puts up 20/20s so often we should call him “The Optometrist”? (Seriously, though. He has twelve 20/20s this year and thirty-two in his career which would put him at fifth since ’83 behind Howard, Barkley, Hakeem and Shaq. How this dude hasn’t secured an endorsement deal with LensCrafters yet is confounding.)
Add it all up and you get…a collective shrug from the NBA universe.
You would think he’d be getting more love considering he is entering his prime and seems to keep getting better and better (his per game numbers since he returned from concussion protocol on January 25 are an ungodly 19.4/16.5/1.7/1.6 with 59.9FG% and 67.6FT% and he’s been doing stuff like this on the regular). But, other than a recent Player of the Week honor and the occasional tweet from Sports Illustrated celebrating another of his accomplishments, the love just hasn’t come.
I have a few theories as to why that is.
CHICKS DIG THE LONG BALL
Back in the late 90s, Nike dropped this brilliant ad celebrating the steroid-induced totally organic home-run boom.
Ever since, “chicks dig the long ball” has been entrenched in our lexicon. And while it is rooted in baseball, the adage can be applied to hoops, as well. Just supplant “long ball” with “three-pointer” and “chicks” with “advanced stat geeks, blogboys, league-wide front office personnel and Brook Lopez.”
And make no mistake, this three-point revolution has been televised, podcasted and posted about. The seismic shift in the way that the game is being played further and further from the hoop is truly remarkable. Kirk Goldsberry (a great follow on twitter, @kirkgoldsberry) regularly posts shot-trend graphics that give a visual to this new paradigm. It really hammers home how the game is almost unrecognizable to even fifteen years ago (his upcoming book Sprawlball will go into even more detail).
You know who is not great at three-pointers? Andre Drummond (though he gave it the old college try earlier this year). But what he is good at, rebounding, he does better than anyone else in the league. Transcendentally, so. And while “chicks” may not dig rebounding, it still can play a vital role in winning and losing. The top ten rebounding teams this season (as of games played by 3/19) had a combined winning percentage of .548. The bottom ten rebounding squads winning percentage was .437.
THE SMALL(ISH) MARKET BLUES
I think we can all agree that the national media has a coastal bias. There is a reason they call the midwest ‘flyover country’, after all. Keeping that in mind, it makes sense that teams located in Boston, Philly, New York and Los Angeles will get far more attention than those whose nearest body of water is one of the Great Lakes. And while you can say (and would be mostly right) that the Pistons don’t get much attention because frankly, they haven’t been any good for a while, that cannot be the only reason they are ignored. Just look at the Pacers, for example. They currently reside in the fourth seed, ahead of the much-ballyhooed Celtics and yet you can probably count on one hand how many national features they’ve garnered (and those most likely were obituaries burying the team after the Oladipo injury).
Even the number one-seeded Bucks, whose 8.52 net rating (an estimate of point differential over 100 possessions) towers over that of the Warriors’ next best 5.85, receive only a smattering of the national love that should be commensurate with the level of dominance they’ve displayed this year. You could argue it is because Giannis (their superstar and perhaps the planet’s best player) is so unassuming and quiet that they are easier to overlook, but I doubt that’s the reason. Take Blake Griffin for example. In L.A. he was a fun-loving, Kia-jumping superstar the league proudly showcased but as soon as he landed in Detroit he’s lost a bit of that luster (and a Kardashian) even though he’s also putting up some of the best numbers of his career.
Our anonymity is something that we in the mid-to-small markets have come to accept. Teams in Detroit, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Minnesota and even some less glamorous near-coasters like Charlotte and Portland will not muster much national attention unless they land LeBron James, win a title, or play host to a league-altering brawl. But at least the locals appreciate what Drummond is doing, right?
LOCAL INDIFFERENCE
I went to Target the other day to get my daughter some Pistons swag to wear to game we had tickets to. In the sports apparel section I saw a pretty decent selection of Red Wings, Tigers, and Lions gear. There was even a whole aisle dedicated to the Spartans and Wolverines. But nothing for the Pistons.
Not one single thing.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen! As a child I can still remember pop-up tents in gas station and liquor store parking lots pushing bushels of black t-shirts with “Bad Boys”, “U Can’t Touch This” (MC Hammer was big at the time) and “Back 2 Back” plastered all over them. The Ben Wallace-led ‘Goin’ To Work’ squads of the mid-aughts had people of all races and creeds rocking big, black Afro wigs. And this team can’t even get a single shirt onto the Target apparel rack.
And not only are the locals not buying the swag, they’re also avoiding the games (even with their fancy new hockey arena). The Pistons rank twenty-fourth in average attendance (16,127) but dead last in the percentage of seats filled (76.8%). To make matters worse, it seems like fans in other cities appreciate our guys more than we do. When they play on the road, they rank eighteenth (17,700) and sixteenth (93.5%) in those figures, respectively. Why the apathy with the community, then?
There are two main reasons I see for this era’s disconnect with the fans as compared to the devotion the ‘Bad Boys’ and the ‘Goin’ To Work’ teams enjoyed. One is hustle. Both of those teams were built on the principle that even on nights where they may be out-talented, they would never be out-worked. And you can say it is cliché here in Detroit that we are a blue-collar town that appreciates a good work ethic, but it’s true. We made Gods out of guys like Darren McCarty, Bob Probert, Kirk Gibson, the aforementioned Wallace, Rick Mahorn, etc. I could go on and on. And for much of Drummond’s career, the knock on him has been an inconsistent motor. In fact, had it not been for that perception he’d have never fallen to Detroit in the draft to begin with.
The thing is, if you’ve been paying attention, those moments where it seems like Dre is in his own head, or distracted, or just not giving it his all are fewer and farther between these days. In fact, I cannot recall a recent example where it has even crossed my mind that he may be dogging it. Part of this uptick in effort may be due to playing next to Griffin. In a recent piece in The Athletic by James L. Edwards III (another great twitter follow, @JLEdwardsIII) Drummond said this about Griffin’s influence;
“When I didn’t shoot the right shot, you know, he got on me, ‘You’re stronger than him. You need to go through him.’ The next possession I came down and dunked on him. With guys like that, guys that give me confidence, we give each other confidence throughout the game, too.”
Beyond Griffin’s impact, playing for a coach like Dwayne Casey who brought with him from Toronto a reputation of being tough, but fair with his players, may also have a hand in Drummond’s maturation. Or it could just be that he’s twenty-five now and more understanding of the responsibility that comes with being a leader. Either way, if Dre is able to continue on this current path, the questions of his motor will go the way of the ‘Hack-a-Drum.’
The other, and perhaps most important reason, for the disconnect between the fans and Drummond (and by extension, this team) is winning. The Lions may be able to sell out Ford Field year after year without providing their fan-base one single reason for being there, but the Pistons are not afforded that luxury. Their fans are out there, but they go into hibernation when the team isn’t competitive. Back in the glory days when the team was hanging banners, the Palace of Auburn Hills was rockin’ with sellout after sellout. Little Caesars Arena, on the other hand, has been a mausoleum of empty black seats that seem to only be occupied when Canadians come streaming across the border to root on their Raptors.
A good showing this year in the playoffs (assuming they get there) could change things, though. It needn’t even be a series win. A couple victories with at least a few signature moments from this transformed Drummond ought to be enough to get the fans to rise from their slumber. And once they do it will be increasingly more difficult to forget about Dre.
Cover image created by Erik Belcarz (background- Rinka Patel, Drummond image- Allison, Keith. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Andre_Drummond_vs_Wizards_2014.jpg