There’ve been great conversations in the media and blogs whether Andre should change his game to match the Lakers’ needs or whether the Lakers should take advantage of his unique strengths and adjust their approach?
Now that Andre has reached agreement to join the Los Angeles Lakers, it’s going to be fascinating to find out exactly what his role on the team will be and how much the Lakers’ strategy on offense and defense will change. Drummond brings skills the Lakers need to repeat as champs, including elite rebounding, low post scoring, physical size, and solid rim protection. But integrating him into a championship team is not a simple slam dunk.
Drummond is looking at the starting center position on the Lakers as the perfect team and situation to best showcase his talents to convince a team to offer him a max contract as an unrestricted free agent next summer. Ideally, he wants to start and close games, play big minutes, and be featured on offense. Money and even the lure of a championship are not paramount. Drummond is primarily focused on helping his career, brand, and future.
The Lakers, of course, know all of this but they also needed to sell Andre that joining the Lakers would give him the ideal stage and best opportunity to show the world what he can accomplish playing on a championship team. The Lakers goal is a championship with everybody pulling in the same direction. That means Andre and the Lakers had to reach an important meeting of the minds to balance the needs of the player and team.
So let’s take a look at the role Drummond and the Lakers could have agreed upon and highlight the areas where the needs of the player and team could have conflicted and how those conflicts might have been resolved.
STARTING AND CLOSING
There’s no question Andre Drummond will be the Lakers’ starting center. The more important question is will he close games, especially once we get into the playoffs when the Lakers prefer to close with AD at the five?
While there will be matchups where LA may need Drummond and Davis on the floor together to close games, there’s no way the Lakers promised Andre that he would automatically be on the team’s closing lineup for every game. While Frank Vogel has usually stayed with a consistent starting lineup, he’s also always preferred to adjust who closes games for the Lakers, depending on the matchups and who’s been playing well. That’s not going to change.
While Andre is likely to be the starter most of the time, there may be games where teams go small and the Lakers decide to matchup. In the end, the Lakers and Andre have likely agreed coach Vogel would make those calls.
FEATURED ON OFFENSE
The Lakers are first and foremost LeBron James’ and Anthony Davis’ team and Andre Drummond signing with them is not going to change that. Andre will get his share of touches but he’ll still be the Lakers’ third option.
Whether the Lakers feature Andre Drummond on offense will be another decision that has to be matchup driven. The Lakers won’t have a problem dumping the ball inside to Andre if he has a clear cut matchup advantage. However, they’re not going to suddenly turn into a team whose top priority is to feed the ball into the post as if Andre Drummond was Shaquille O’Neal. Andre will get his opportunities but only within the flow of the game.
Drummond is smart enough to understand this is LeBron’s and AD’s team and knows that proving he can play winning basketball on a championship team will be worth more in free agency this summer than inflated stats.
MINUTES AND SHOTS
Andre Drummond will average around 32 minutes per game depending on matchups, which is in line with his recent and career numbers. But there will be sporadic games where he’ll play fewer minutes due to matchups.
As for shots, Drummond averaged a career high 15.2 shots per game for the Cavs this season. He’s not going to get that many shots with the Lakers, who will be looking for him to improve both his shot selection and efficiency. LeBron James averages 18.4 and Anthony Davis 16.7 shots per game for a total of 35.1 or about 40% of the team’s 86 shots per game. The only way Andre is going to get 15 shots per game is dominating the offensive glass.
Andre Drummond will be the Lakers third star when it comes to minutes, shots, and points scored but playing on the Lakers with LeBron should enable him to discover and showcase his best possible version as a player.
IMPACT ON ROSTER
Andre Drummond’s arrival will have major consequences for the Lakers’ current two centers, Marc Gasol and Montrezl Harrell. Gasol will probably find himself playing rarely and Harrell his minutes dramatically reduced.
Vogel faces a daunting challenge distributing center minutes. Harrell is averaging 25.3 and Gasol 19.8 minutes per game. Without AD, that leaves just 16 minutes for the other centers if Andre plays 32 minutes per game. Until AD returns, Harrell should get most of the remaining minutes while Gasol sits. The big crunch will come when AD returns. Vogel may have to get creative to find minutes for Harrell with Davis to avoid losing his impact.
Once we’re in the playoffs and the Lakers go small and need Anthony Davis to play more minutes at the five defensively, Drummond and Harrell could both see their minutes and roles diminish significantly the deeper LA goes.
There’s no question signing Andre Drummond was a big and necessary move by the Lakers. They desperately needed more size and athleticism at the five than either Gasol or Harrell could provide to repeat as champions.
The big challenge now that Drummond is aboard is still finding a way to take advantage of Trezz’s great energy and scoring at the rim. Unfortunately, Drummond and Harrell together just doesn’t work in the modern NBA. Further complicating the situation, the Lakers may need Davis play the five in the playoffs even more this year than last year as neither Drummond or Harrell are great fits for the team’s championship defensive schemes.
The Lakers were fortunate to sign Andre Drummond and hopefully he and the team have agreed upon a role that will bring another championship but Frank Vogel and the coaches will have to figure out how to make it work.
While the circumstances are completely different, I think Lakers fans can look at how the team integrated Dwight Howard as an example of how the team is going work Andre Drummond into their rotations and schemes.
There’s no question in my mind that the Lakers discussed in great detail how they planned to use Drummond and what his role would be as a Laker. He and they both know he is a rental so I think besides selling Andre on joining the Lakers, Rob and his team wanted to make sure both sides were on the same page.
The Lakers aren’t looking to Drummond to be a low post scoring threat ala Shaquille O’Neal. For one thing, Andre is not really an efficient scorer in the low post. He’s going to get some great passes from LeBron but he’s also going to have to get the ball himself off the offensive glass if he wants to average 15 shots per game like he did in Cleveland.
What the Lakers want from Dre is dominant rebounding at both ends of the court, efficient scoring and crashing the glass on offense, and physical size and rim protection on defense. Anything else they get like a little playmaking is just gravy. His model as far as team chemistry goes is to emulate the great job JaVale and Dwight did in the bubble last season.
The key is Andre accepting that he is the third option on this Lakers team and focussing on doing what the team needs him to do rather on playing the same game he’s played his entire career. That means focusing on defense and understanding his limited role on offense. That’s the difference playing on a championship rather than lottery team.
If Andre can do that, he can help the Lakers win the championship and showcase the best possible version of himself as an elite center, resurrect his career at 27, and get the new max contract he believes he deserves. I’ll be rooting for him to do that.
LAKERS DEPTH CHART – 14 PLAYERS:
PG – SCHRODER, Horton-Tucker
SG – CALDWELL-POPE, Caruso, Matthews
SF – JAMES. Kuzma, McKinnie
PF – DAVIS, Morris, Dudley
CE – DRUMMOND, Harrell, Gasol
Pretty sure Dudley is done for the year. Rivers just came free, and some other buyout guys should probably be brought on to replace guys like McKinnie/Cacok who really aren’t ready at this level. Since the Drummond signing was always in the bag and the “visits” were more to lessen any tampering allegations, can he suit up tonight?
We shouldn’t need him tonight but it would be great to have him next Wed for the Bucks and the rest of the schedule until AD and LeBron get back.
I suspect they won’t cut these guys because they don’t have any minutes for anybody but a wing defender and don’t want to hurt the team chemistry. Might change but I would bet on Otto Porter, Jr. as the last addition.
Here’s the real wild card with respect to Drummond. How will finally playing for a winning team change his motivation and play? After years of playing for nothing but stats in Detroit and then Cleveland, how will Dre do under the bright lights of LA?
It’s a shame Andre won’t get to start his rental stint with the Lakers playing alongside LeBron James. I worry a little about him getting too many touches with our team so offensively challenged without LeBron and AD. Andre’s Achilles heel is poor shot selection and low percentage finishing on offense. The last thing the Lakers need is for him to get used to too many touches and then struggling to adjust to less opportunity once LeBron and AD return. This is where all the smart discussion about his role might get undermined. I don’t want to see us dropping the ball to Dre in the low post and standing around while he goes 1-on-1.
Defensively, I’m encouraged by his league best 1.6 steals per game for centers than his 1.2 blocks per game. The word is he is pretty quick for a 6′ 10″ 280 lbs player but has not always been motivated to play defense. Hopefully, he’ll quickly understand that won’t fly on the Lakers. It will be interesting to see if he can fit on a trapping, doubling, switching style of defense the Lakers want to play. That will go a long way towards determining what his role will be come the playoffs.
At any rate, landing Drummond was probably an essential move to stay in competition for the championship this year. I do believe there’s a chance he could turn out to be the difference maker but it will depend on whether he can learn to be a Laker, which is a lot different than being a Piston or Cavalier. In the end, it will up to Andre to play the right way.
So…cool, exciting I suppose. Certainly not my first choice in terms of our needs but the best choice talent/health-wise. Not gonna lie, as soon as Mitchell Robinson went down in NYC I was fairly confident Drummond would head to the Big Apple. Perfect for Thibbs system, would start alongside Randle et al, going to be fans there quicker than here, they can afford him next season and we cannot. Or at least he’ll be bummed if he’s a Laker next season if money is his goal.
I see him as a 3rd option at best and more likely the 4th. Schroder is also looking for a big post-season deal. He’s going to play as he has and frankly that’s in the best interests of the team. Another reason I thought the fit on the Knicks was better. With an healthy Laker roster he’ll get some points off LBJ,as the team does, and clean the offensive glass. That’s it. We didn’t create post touches for Gasol or really ask him to anything but function from the top of the key down. I expect a similarly limited role for Drummond.
While AD is out I can even envision a world where Dre starts at the 4 next to Gasol. The biggest fear in Laker Land is that Davis won’t play to potential or, worse, not at all. Drummond is as good of an insurance policy as anything else out there for that potentiality. It means that, once LeBron gets healthy, he and Frank will have a bevvy of options at the 4 and 5. Between Gasol, Drummond, Harrell and Morris the Lakers have a lot of looks should AD continue to experience issues staying on the court.
Lastly, it’s not like the Lakers have been burning it up from three. Having a rebounder like Dre never hurts a team. Ever. Even if all he does is patrol the paint and corral rebounds it’ll help. So welcome to the team Mr. Drummond and go Lakers!
The key for the Lakers may be to figure out how to keep Trezz going once Drummond is here. That probably means Marc gets DNPs and Trezz plays a lot of minutes with AD. Going to be tough to keep him playing at his best though/
I can’t say how excited I am right now for us landing Drummond, a historically great rebounder who can also get you buckets on any given night. And not only that, he is also in his prime at age 27. The same age as AD.
Championship teams need rebounders. Remember Dennis Rodman? How he fits into the team’s style of play will be figured out. We landed a good center without having to trade anyone. That, to me, was all I was looking forward to. Great job by Rob Pelinka.