AUGUST 4: The Sixers have officially signed Drummond, the team announced today in a press release. Minimum-salary signings are one of the transactions that can be formally completed during the free agency moratorium.
AUGUST 3: The Sixers have reached an agreement with free agent center Andre Drummond on a one-year deal, a source tells Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN (Twitter link). According to Kyle Neubeck of PhillyVoice.com (Twitter link), it’s a minimum-salary contract.
It’s an interesting fit for Drummond, who – as a member of the Pistons and Cavaliers – has had some fierce battles with 76ers center Joel Embiid over the years. In 2021/22, he’ll be Embiid’s backup in the middle, taking the spot previously occupied by Dwight Howard, who has agreed to return to the Lakers, Drummond’s most recent team.
Drummond, who will turn 28 next Tuesday, is one of the NBA’s best rebounders, having led the league in the category in four separate seasons. In 2020/21, he averaged 14.9 PPG and 12.0 RPG in 46 total games (27.0 MPG) for the Cavs and Lakers.
Drummond has spent much of his NBA career putting up big numbers for lottery teams or borderline playoff clubs. He joined the Lakers last season hoping to contribute to a winner, but fell out of the team’s rotation entirely by the time L.A. was eliminated by Phoenix in Game 6 of the opening round. In Philadelphia, he’ll be looking once again to prove he can be a reliable role player on a title-contending club.
The Sixers, who have agreed to re-sign Furkan Korkmaz via his Bird rights and Drummond to a minimum-salary contract, still have the mid-level exception at their disposal in free agency.
huh?
Another Vet minimum player is too young for Lakers
Matthews and Melo will love Lakers
Lakers bench has only 5 old men so far
How ironic
But seriously, welcome to the squad! This looks like a solid move for the backup 5 spot as well as a competent starter in the 15-25 games Joel needs to sit.
You haven’t seen him play. Guys a roadblock and doesn’t space floor well. Terrible defender, literally all he does is rebound
Which is why he’s a back up in Philly…….
Drummomd was playing roughly 25 mins a night for the Lakers last year.
Howard was seeing 17 a night last year in Philly.
A 2nd unit rebounder who can give you possibly 10 and 10 a night playing under 20 mins on a vet min contract isn’t a roster killer.
Good move for sixers but I don’t understand why Drummond would want this
Because he awful and no one would start him after watching him last year
True he also will probably have the best chance to start in philly eventually since embiid is injury prone
Why not Celtics?
They can give more minutes
Marcus Smart can defend the center position better than he can.
Really why not ????
Someone needs to tell Celtics FA started.
He’s not awful. Far from it, actually. The league has changed now and there is not room for a starting center who plays on the low block only. He clogs things up.
Very good signing for the sixers
Mike you clearly haven’t seen him play. This isn’t Drummond from 5/6 years ago, guys useless and lost his starting spot to a rookie and markieff morris, can’t defend and can’t shoot. Would have been better bringing back Howard.
re: Tatsumaki
I’m a Pistons fan that watched most games during Drummond’s prime. I can tell you even the Drummond from 5/6 years ago is nowhere near as good as you thought he was then.
He’s a phenomenal rebounder, but that’s about it. Always has made boneheaded selfish plays on offense. Always has struggled badly on certain areas on defense. Always has been destroyed by players with strong post games.
For a minimum contract he’s an absolute bargain. But if he’s anywhere close to being your best player you’re a garbage team. The Pistons really had no chance to succeed with him on the books for a max contract. He’s not that guy.
I don’t understand the point of this post…
WHO exactly is talking about him being anyone’s best player?
He was the best player on ONE team…the Pistons. He’s not better than Embiid, Simmons or Harris(or others, but…whatever).
He’s a big guy who can bang with other bigs and rebound. The type of player who can help out in certain matchup’s for the league minimum.
Says the man that posts an entirely irrelevant post himself. I’ve already said he’s a bargain on a minimum contract. What is YOUR point with your post?
I never said anything about him being one of the best players in Philly. I was talking about how it was a bad situation in Detroit and Cleveland. He’s not suited to be the go to guy.
I am surprised that he seemingly WANTS a bench role though. He could’ve chosen to go elsewhere that would’ve given him a chance to start.
LMFAO…dude…again, WHAT are you talking about?
“The Pistons really had no chance to succeed with him on the books for a max contract. He’s not that guy.”
I guess when you start ranting about how you’re in trouble if he’s the best player on your team and going on about how he’s not “that guy,” when he signed a contract for THE MINIMUM, it’s just really starts to sounds like inane rambling.
So…that’s my point. Or at least one of them. Another would be we don’t care what Andre Drummand was on a team dumb enough to give him a max deal when we’re talking about him coming off the bench on a GOOD team.
I don’t know, there are a LOT of points about why the Pistons and Andrew Drummand of 5-6 years ago are totally irrelevant to the Sixers and Andrew Drummand today.
Again, yet another post that said nothing. An essay to babble about a post you clearly are not smart enough to understand. Move along.
Yeah…no I get what you’re saying.
If Drummand is the best player on your team or you’re paying him the Max, that’s not good.
AWESOME. Neither two apply…so I understand what you said and what your point is. I just understand how stupid it is as well. This isn’t about you or those terrible Pistons teams.
yeah 14pts, 12 rebounds and good defense. Horrible.
When did Drum start playing good defense
empty stats with subpar defense, actually
The stats are empty. People complained about Russ Westbrook putting up empty triple doubles but at least his teams made the playoffs. Drummond has usually been the beneficiary of being the best player on bad teams. He rebounds well and that is about it. He’s terrible defensively when being forced to switch or being asked to guard an opposing big with some sort of post-up game. His offense is basically that of a rim runner/clean up big. He doesn’t space the floor at all and hasn’t really developed into a consistent post-up threat either.
Blocks aren’t really a good indicator of defense either as there are plenty of guys who will chase blocks and steals but often leave themselves out of position if they don’t succeed. Hassan Whiteside is a near perfect example of this. Guy puts up big block numbers every year but often does so at the risk of whiffing and leaving him out of position for a rebound/box out and easily allowing offensive rebounds. Young Javale McGee also had the same issue. There are ways to contest shots at the rim without giving up your positioning to grab rebounds (i.e. Rudy Gobert). Drummond has yet to master that skill either.
Re: JT19
You’re right on everything, except when you say “His offense is basically that of a rim runner/clean up big”. It’s worse than that, because he doesn’t know his limitations. He think he’s Jokic. Tries to make all kinds of fancy plays, which usually hurt his team.
He’d be a MUCH MUCH better player if he just knew his role as the rebounder / defense guy (and then focused on making his defense better instead of spending off-seasons practicing 3-point shooting). Instead he tries to be a go-to guy on offense, with extremely limited tools.
He didn’t play good defense.. he also was a lame clogger, has hands like kwame brown and most of his offensive boards are off his misses at the rim cause he has zero low post game or shooting touch at rim. he is absolutely horrendous
I don’t get what people watch lol. I get you don’t like him. But don’t make up stuff. Mavs, Celtics, Hornets, Raptors all should have him. For Minimum
Geeeeeezzzzzes
Lol the people putting forth actual arguments are liars but you, with no argument, are right. Sure.
I think the NBA just proved all of us right and you wrong, Al. If any GM valued him highly he doesn’t sign for anywhere near the minimum.
The truth is I probably even overvalue him. I would’ve expected he’d get 10-15 mil a year, and you’ve attacked me for saying he’s that type of player. Instead he gets the absolute freaking minimum. You’ve valued him as a key player and you couldn’t have been more wrong.
What?!
Vets chasing rings I get, but surely Drummond could have done better than a minimum. There are teams still looking for bigs that have money (ie. Raptors).
Good move for sixers. Adds rebounding, can score in post and good insurance for Embiid(injury). Also adding him on vets min makes him a easy throw in down the road in a possible Simmons trade.
Oooof how far Drummond has fallen.
Which makes him the perfect teammate for Simmons.
As a lakers fan it sucks to see him go but it didn’t really work out well last year playing with AD. Good luck in Philly!
damn it I wanted him for the bulls..
It’s a de facto trade of Howard for Drummond.
I will take Drummond over that brick handed tech machine howard every day of the week. Love this.
Wow. Drummond could easily get a starting job with multiple years on the ten’s of millions. I wonder if this is ring chasing or if Embiid might be injured?
Tens of millions where, China? Certainly not in the US.
Pain for Phily fans. Pain.
At least we didn’t use a #2 overall pick on a center that no team wants less than a year after he was drafted. Oof.
@jawn
Is that Bagley or Wiseman? Lol
Yea we did with Okafor,and we also traded up to 1 for a pg nobody wanted a year later.
Wow crazy good singing made by the 76ers after losing Dwight Howard to the Lakers.
This takes a ton of pressure off Embiid. You can reduce his minutes which keeps him good at crunch time. You can also give him maintenance games off as Drummond can certainly play. Not sure I understand how this deal happened. Drummond must know something about what the 76ers are up to. I guess we’ll see.
To be a fly on the wall in Embiids house right now.
Good move for sixers.Embiid can heal his knee, Drummond is younger than Howard
I know a couple people who will be sitting out this thread after projecting 15 mill AAV for this guy 3 months ago
All that talk was absurd. Once the season begins the excited fans in Philly who think their team got a huge bargain will quickly realize why he signed for the minimum.
Im still waiting for one particular person to enter this thread, seems he skipped over this one on accident
Probably folks who just know him by his stats and have not watched him recently or who aren’t familiar with how he’s performed on his recent teams. It’s been clear for awhile now anything over, say, $8mil was never in the cards unless a terrible front office took the bait of the empty stats.
He wasn’t much better in Detroit. Pistons fans were almost universally thrilled to give him away for nothing 2 years ago. The guy has always been an empty stats machine.
Elite rebounding in the NBA these days gets you paid THIS!….Better work on that 3-point stroke kiddies!!! ;)
P.S. Must be nice to chase rings at age-27…he turns 28 in one week! (He’s already made 137-mil+ in his career btw, so I guess he can afford this…smh)
Funny thing is I’m not sure I’d actually call him an elite rebounder, either. You look at the advanced stats and they suggest he gets some of those rebounds by poaching them from his own teammates, and it’s not like those would help the team win.
Drummond is trash! The only thing he does well is rebound, other than that he’s a liability on the court.
Solid foresight for the inevitable Embiid injuries and load management.
This is just more prof that Brad Stevens doesn’t know what the hells he’s doing at this price the C’s should’ve been all over this
I guess it was Drummond who was drunk when the fan told him to take the minimum to stay with lakers.. Drummond has worse hands than kwame brown.. philly fans will destroy him when they watch him play
ROFLMAO
This is BS for the league
He’s young. Vet min. Could start if Harris is traded for a starting Pg. Wouldn’t that be a steal. Now this is all if he’s actually good again.
He is there to take over during Embids annual injury leave. Dwight Howard will sub for AD during his annual injury leave its a wash.
I really thought him and Embiid hated each other but ig this is the best way to never play against him lol
Great pick up! Simmons can drive to the hoop, draw Drummond’s defender then dish to him for the dunk. Drummond is a good dunker and in 2019-20, he also shot 43% from the corner 3 spot.
He’s a career 13% 3-point shooter. Didn’t make a single one out of 8 tries in 20-21. To pretend he’s a threat from deep is delusional. He hurts you more than helps when he tries to do that.
The dunking I’ll agree with. If someone sets him up with a clear lane he can finish for sure. But doing stuff like trying to be a 3-point threat is why he’s only getting a minimum contract. If he just tried to play like DeAndre Jordan he’d be a much better player than he currently is.
He’ll be good for rebounding all the 3’s that Simmons will shoot next year
Anybody who is surprised that Drummond signed for this low really hasn’t watched him play. His game has barely grown since he was drafted. His one good skill is rebounding and that’s about it.
Doesn’t space the floor, has never been a consistent post-up threat, and he has never displayed good enough playmaking skills to have the offense run through him. Defensively, his numbers are pretty empty. He disappears against quality opposing bigs (see basically any game against Embiid). His block numbers are misleading because he’s often caught chasing blocks leaving him out of position to grab rebounds. 1-2 blocks a game isn’t worth giving up multiple second chances per game because you’re out of position.
Minimum it’s crazy. There are ten teams that should have him. For minimum Nets should have him
They have Harden. Put those two together and there isn’t enough offense out there to keep a lead.
He should get a new agent!!
I guess the signing is to entertain Embiid during practice.