Andre Drummond is a lucky boy. Not only does he have a coach that has had success with making his center the crown jewel of his team, but he also has a GM (who just so happens to be the coach) who does not want to use the wait and see approach that so many teams do with players.
The Detroit Pistons are going to talk to Drummond during the summer about extending his contract now instead of waiting until next year.
If Drummond signs this summer, he will count about $21 million against the cap in 2016-17.
If he doesn’t sign then he becomes a restricted free agent and he’d count $8.1 million against the cap. That is a savings of nearly $13 million and the Pistons could use that to upgrade the talent around Drummond.
“We will get into those talks,” Van Gundy said. “We agreed we would get into this after this free-agency period and after the summer league. There is no rush. We have until the end of October so we will get into those talks in the next couple of weeks.”
Here is the potential downside for Drummond. He will be a max player if he stays healthy. If he injures himself, the Pistons are under no obligation to give him a max deal. He could lose millions.
Andre Drummond has been a great player in my eyes. Very underrated in the league. He gets big numbers and is still young. He’s like DeAndre Jordan but with fewer years on his iD.
Sure he’s one of those players that brick so many free throws they’ve created houses but his good far outweighs the bad and I think this is a risk that’ll pay off for everyone involved.
