Andre Drummond

[Uncia03]

He was still the best post defender in college, he had great results on a few PnR plays they actually ran. I think it was a basket or a trip to FT line on 7 out 9 plays. No one is playing PnR in college, unless you have GOAT spacing. UConn didn't, and he still was successful. Also Drummond had two little guys who completely monopolized the ball and didn't thought to share. Napier still averaged 5.8 apg BTW, but it was obvious, he wanted to be the star of the show. You can guess, why Drummond was disinterested. Another guy they freezed out was Lamb, who is coming along nicely in OKC. Napier and Boatright will both stay for 4 years, and Napier will fight to even be drafted this year. College and NBA are two very different things.
P.S. Did I mention Drummond was 280 pounds with 7'6" wingspan and moved like he was SF.

So you say that he was the best post defender in college, then indicate that he was good in the PnR, and then say he was dis-interested because Napier was a ball-hog that didn't get him the ball so it was ok for him to be dis-interested in that case.

Here are my thoughts on all of that.
First, I agree completely with the fact that Napier was a problem. He made the games really tough to watch and he absolutely froze out Jeremy Lamb as well as the rest of the team.
The thing is I really liked Lamb prior to that season and felt that all he had to do was get some additional bulk/strength and he was going to be a good NBA player.
However, Drummond was supposed to be the defensive stalwart in the UCONN line-up. Whether or not he got plays called for him it should not have destroyed his effort on the court. And if you're a defensive player in college with basically zero offensive skill and you let the fact that plays aren't being run for you in college get you down, then it's typically going to be far worse for you in the NBA.
If you're saying that his effort wasn't there because he wasn't getting plays ran for him, then that makes my case for me even more because usually it gets worse at the NBA level and not better.

Second, I disagree with you regarding him being the best post defender in college. He was supposed to be the best post defender in college, but he simply wasn't.
Anthony Davis was better, Henson was better, Withey was better, Aiken was better, just to name a few.

See when I was watching him play, I could care less about his offense. He couldn't shoot the ball at all and was horrible at the FT line. But to me, that was irrelevant. I wanted him dominating on the glass, intimidating guards coming into the lane, stonewalling bigs trying to get interior buckets.

But in 28.4 minutes of play he was only getting 4.2 Defensive Reb/game (7.6 total *wince*) and only 2.7 blocks/game.
And when you're that big, that strong, that athletic...those number are anemic in the college game.

Try this statline out for 26.1 minutes of play (2.3 minutes less per game)
6.2 Def Rebounds (8.9 Total) and 5.4 blocks/game.

The above numbers were from the freshman year (and only year) of our own Hassan Whiteside. Whiteside, by the way, I only got to see one college game of his but I was ecstatic when we drafted him because it was a 2nd round pick and it was a rebounder/shotblocker. Too bad he couldn't actually play the game of basketball.

And that was a very large concern with Drummond for everyone. That he simply couldn't play the game of basketball. He was unwilling or unmotivated or incapable of doing it at a level higher than high school.
Anyway if Drummond, to your own words, "280 pounds with 7'6" wingspan and moved like he was SF", as well as "the best post defender in college", then he would have shown something in his full year at UCONN. But he failed in that. If he hadn't failed in that he wouldn't have slipped all the way down to the 9th spot.

He showed no offense (which is fine), but he also showed no hustle or desire, and basically gave no indication that he wanted to work hard on the defense end of the court.

Anyway, Drummond has been playing very good basketball in the NBA. If you look at the discussion regarding him prior to the draft you'll see that the concerns I've mentioned in this post I mentioned back then. You'll also see that I said I hoped that he proved me wrong and had a good NBA career. So far he's done that and I'm very happy for him. Just because I had serious concerns about his ability to play in the NBA doesn't mean that I have any desire to see him fail to prove that I was correct in my analysis.

You're never going to be correct all the time when it comes to drafting players. One of the hardest things to determine, especially for a guy only playing one year, is "Why isn't this kid playing up to expectations."
In Drummond's case it was issues of showing the ability to work hard, and when you're primarily a defensive player that's a huge issue. It's easy to say now that he's got those issues figured out, but after a full year of dis-interested play it was a big gamble to take, which is why he went 9th instead of 2nd/3rd.

At the time I wanted either Anthony Davis or MKG. Barring that, with our 5th pick, I would have taken Harrison Barnes if I selected 5th. If I didn't take Barnes I would have tried to trade down and pick up 2 later 1st round picks. If Drummond was still available at one of the later 1st round picks I would have been more intrigued depending on the spot.

 

[Gilles]

Nobody could score on him in the post. Synergy started tracking college by then, and he was allowing something like TS% of .270 on post-ups. Kentucky had personnel to basically ran pro level defense that year, where guys were channeled to Davis at all the time. Drummond on the other hand spent 40% of his time at PF (Oriakhi was playing center, when both were on the floor), which in college means running around perimeter chasing NBA tweeners or straight SFs. Most defensive rebounds and blocks happen at the rim, and are hard to get, when you're 15 feet out. His off.reb.% of 14.2 was much better indication of his abilities, cause coach could put him where he wanted on offense, unlike defense, and you obviously place guy like Drummond as close to the basket as you can. And last sentence brings me to my final point: Drummond basically didn't have a coach, as Calhoun was in and out the whole season due to illness. Drummond also committed very late and arrived only in the middle of September to the team, missing big part of training camp.

 

[funkykingston]

If everyone recalls, there was quite a bit of talk about how Petrie loved Lillard. Having never seen him play (I don't think) my big fear was that we'd be nabbing a combo guard and was thus against drafting him just on those grounds.

And I know we all love to latch on to those moments when we were right and pat ourselves on the back but while I was advocating drafting Drummond (or trading down to get Lowry and Henson) and was against drafting Robinson, I can't pretend I thought things would play out like they did.

I didn't have TRob pegged as a bust. In fact I thought it was entirely possible that he'd end up a better player than Drummond who might never realize his potential. To me it was a simple matter of fit. Robinson, outside of rebounding, did nothing that would compliment Cousins. Drummond did lots. Rebounding, weakside defending, post defense, shotblocking, running the floor and operating without needing the ball in his hands. All the things you'd want other than a midrange/outside shot.

At worst (barring injury) I saw Drummond as a DeAndre Jordan or JaVale McGee type. Given that guys like that get $10 million/year contracts then Drummond would have been a bargain on his rookie deal.

 

[Bricklayer]

At worst (barring injury) I saw Drummond as a DeAndre Jordan or JaVale McGee type. Given that guys like that get $10 million/year contracts then Drummond would have been a bargain on his rookie deal.

Which is all you had to believe in to know Drummond was the pick. You didn't have to know Drummond was 20-10. You just had to know that in any outcome except pure bust he was exactly what we needed. Throw on upside bigger than anybody in the draft than Davis, and taking an older undersized pure PF who can't block shots or play center is just flat stupid.

 

[VF21]

Which is all you had to believe in to know Drummond was the pick. You didn't have to know Drummond was 20-10. You just had to know that in any outcome except pure bust he was exactly what we needed. Throw on upside bigger than anybody in the draft than Davis, and taking an older undersized pure PF who can't block shots or play center is just flat stupid.

Or pure genius, if you're trying to fail - which I'm pretty convinced is what the Maloofs were doing. They got Jimmer because he meant money in THEIR pockets from the jersey sales, etc. No way to know the complete thought process behind getting Robinson, but I'm becoming more and more convinced it wasn't anything good.

 

[Big Cuz 15]

this one is for u brick.

the guy can handle the rock for a burly fella

 

[Bricklayer]

Or pure genius, if you're trying to fail - which I'm pretty convinced is what the Maloofs were doing. They got Jimmer because he meant money in THEIR pockets from the jersey sales, etc. No way to know the complete thought process behind getting Robinson, but I'm becoming more and more convinced it wasn't anything good.

That's still too big conspiracycy for me. Requires Petrie to knowingly and willingly conspire to lose so the team can leave town? Maybe others? No. Simple incompetence and cheapness will do.

Maloofs fingerprints/commands were all over the Jimmer pick, but even there it was just them being stupid enthusiasts. We've never heard a peep that they were involved in the Robinson pick.

 

[Bricklayer]

this one is for u brick.

the guy can handle the rock for a burly fella

yeah, just stupid. If I owned a team and my GM made that sort of idiotic mistake I wouldn't just fire him, I'd have two big mofos throw him into a car and take him some place to be worked over. They'd be lucky if they found his teeth.

 

[VF21]

That's still too big conspiracycy for me. Requires Petrie to knowingly and willingly conspire to lose so the team can leave town? Maybe others? No. Simple incompetence and cheapness will do.

Maloofs fingerprints/commands were all over the Jimmer pick, but even there it was just them being stupid enthusiasts. We've never heard a peep that they were involved in the Robinson pick.

You're probably right but it's awfully hard not to become part of the "tinfoil hat" crowd when you look back on all the stupidity that ran rampant.