Say what you will about Andre Drummond.
He doesn't always play with the edge necessary to take advantage of his gifts. The development of his back-to-the-basket game has almost completely stalled after he made only minimal progress in that regard over his first few years in the league.
Drummond is severely limited offensively otherwise, too, with no shooting range whatsoever beyond the paint. For a big man who should be a perennial Defensive Player of the Year candidate based on his otherworldly physical tools, he's far too often a non-factor on that side of the ball. As a result, he's almost certainly not worth the five-year, $127 million contract he signed as a restricted free agent in 2016, either.
That's all fair. But as a rebounder? The 6-foot-11 athletic big man is truly among the best the game has ever seen, a reality driven home by the Detroit Pistons big man reaching 7,000 total career rebounds in his team's game against the Atlanta Hawks on Friday night.
Andre 7000
Congrats Dre! @budweiserusa pic.twitter.com/aJoKSkRLNm
— Detroit Pistons (@DetroitPistons) February 23, 2019
Twitter user @ImMartinHi, site expert for FanSided's PistonsPowered, noted that the former UConn Huskie isn't just the second-youngest player in league history, behind Dwight Howard, to reach that rebounding threshold. Drummond, at 25, is indeed older than Howard was when he first accomplished the feat, but did so in 517 games compared to Howard's 548, making him the fastest player to ever do it.
After leading the NBA in total rebounds in 2016 and last season, the Pistons center is on track to do so again. He's averaging a top-ranked 15.0 rebounds per game in 2018-19, second-highest of his career. He is also averaging a career-best 17.4 points per game for Detroit, 26-30, a half game up on the Miami Heat for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
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