(Audacy) While most of the country was either watching the NFL or the sad, final innings of the Mets' season Sunday evening, America’s favorite journeyman center Andre Drummond was having an out-of-body experience.
Drummond -- a Bulls newcomer who's on his sixth team in four seasons -- put on a 3-point clinic in a win against the Raptors, going 3-for-3 from downtown. If you’ve followed the 6-foot-10, 280-pound Drummond’s career at all or understand what his role encompasses, this development should floor you. He entered Sunday with 15 made 3-pointers on 114 lifetime attempts in regular-season games. That's 13.2% shooting from behind the arc. It also checks out to about one made 3-pointer every 48 games in the regular season. In fact, Drummond hasn’t made a 3-pointer in the regular season since the 2019-'20 season.
Though it used to be like seeing a pink unicorn on ice skates, it’s no longer unusual for big men to sling it from long range with back-to-the-basket centers all but extinct in today’s NBA, dying out in favor of stretch-fours with more developed skill sets. Given Drummond's career-long struggles from the charity stripe -- his 47.3 free-throw percentage is the second-lowest among qualifiers in NBA history -- it’s unthinkable that he would sink a trio of 3-pointers in a game.
While it’s easy to dismiss Drummond’s sudden 3-point barrage as catching lightning in a bottle (you won’t find lower stakes than a sparsely attended Sunday preseason game in Toronto), his fast improvement is admirable, as is his willingness to evolve, not unlike Bucks veteran center Brook Lopez, who experienced a similar resurgence when he moved his game out to the perimeter.
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