http://nba.nbcsports.com/2015/10/20...sion-with-pistons/?ocid=Yahoo&partner=ya5nbcs Andre Drummond is the Pistons’ franchise player. Owner Tom Gores called the center a “max player” as soon as last season ended. President/coach Stan Van Gundy has consistently praised Drummond. If this happened for the reasons they wanted, this is potentially a nice victory for the Pistons.
If he truly wants to stay then it does make sense to help the team get someone else to come in and help him.
We probably get a defensive center like Steven Adams for less. Not sure if Drummond is really worth the "new max".
Steven Adams A.) Is not as good right now as Drummond B.) Does not have as much potential as Drummond. I'd probably still pay Drummond.
For the record, a Drummond/Lillard draft is what I hoped for. Dame fucked it up by tearing up the pre-draft shit.
I'm not gonna try to save face, I wanted Drummond over Lillard at the time of the draft, but hoped they could get both.
Samesies. When we made the trade for the Nets' pick, I was hoping for Drummond. Lillard was a late-first round pick or early-second rounder. By the time we got to the draft, both were somewhere around 5-13.
I wanted Harrison Fucking Barnes at the draft. I came around on Lillard in summer league though; could tell he was special it reminded me of Roy's summer league.
This seems like the new move we'll see with some max players. First Kawhi did it; now Drummond. Supposedly Beal will do a similar deal. I bet Lillard would've accepted this if we wanted. With all the Blazers roster turnover management probably wanted to just get the deal locked up. With NBA players such as Durant and Harden having $200+ million shoe contracts I wonder if we will see more and more MVP level talents playing one year deals as LeBron is doing with a 2nd year player option. Seems to make sense as the player could effectively have veto power over any of the teams offseason decisions. The max salary artificially greatly underpays these players. The above deals are different though since these guys are on rookie contracts.
This is where I was, except I also was high on Rivers... I'm glad we have Lillard now and a pretty deep cast of front court players.
I'll cop to wanting Drummond over Lillard. I'm fine with the way it shook out, but I don't think there's any shame in taking Drummond over Lillard. Obviously Lillard has had the better career so far, but I think a lot of that is because of the teams each player was drafted by. I'd still love to pair Drummond and Lillard together.
After getting lied to and dumped by Allbitch, I can't blame the Blazers for getting Dame signed while he was willing. I also liked Drummond in that draft and had a brief surge of love for Barnes, but Dame just felt like the guy to grab while the grabbing was good. In Neil we trust.....
Yeah I also think the Oden debacle turned the Blazers off from lottery pick centers with bust potential. They'd rather have missed with a different type of player. The team wanted to be competitive sooner with Aldridge having two years on his contract and Drummond was over 3 years younger. Dame was the most NBA ready as a 4 year senior. Hard to believe Drummond is still only 22.
Imagine if we did end up drafting Lillard and Drummond? The future would of been brighter than it already is! Would of been sweet.