Since being traded by the Pistons three years ago, Andre Drummond has gone from a franchise centerpiece to an NBA journeyman. These days he's coming off the bench for the Bulls, his fifth team in the past two seasons.
The former All-Star who once signed a $130 million deal with Detroit is playing for NBA peanuts this year in Chicago -- $3.2 million -- a year after making the vet minimum in Philadelphia. As the NBA has become more and more of a shooter's game, the league's four-time rebounding champ has drifted into obscurity.
Drummond, who spent the first eight seasons of his career with the Pistons, is still just 29 years old. Before he calls it quits, whenever that may be, he's hopeful for a reunion with the organization that drafted him ninth overall in 2012.
“I would love to play back in Detroit near the end of my career, just to close that chapter and go back home where I started," Drummond told the Detroit News last week before posting 12 points and seven rebounds in the Bulls' win over the Pistons.
Drummond started all but one game over his final seven seasons in Detroit. And while he was a starter last season for a Nets team that made the playoffs, he's become a full-time bench player for the Bulls. Before the Pistons shifted into a rebuild and traded Drummond (and his contract) to Cleveland at the 2019-20 deadline, Drummond said he thought Detroit was the place "I was going to be for my entire career."
"But it didn’t go that way," he said. "They had other plans. I think they wanted to restart their team again and it’s never any hard feelings. I know the way of the business. It’s always love. I love (Pistons owner) Tom Gores, I love his family. I love the city of Detroit and I love the staff there.”
Drummond has a $3.3 million player option with the Bulls for next season. He's given the team solid production off the bench, averaging 6.2 points and 7.0 boards in about 14 minutes per night. He's not the daily double-double he once was, but the 6'10 center remains a productive player in the right role. He seems to have found it in Chicago.
One day, maybe he'll rediscover it in Detroit.
“I don’t think anybody that starts somewhere plans on leaving, so for me, I’ve always had and I still have love for Detroit,” Drummond said. "I still have my home in Detroit. I’m in Detroit all the time, regardless if people see me. I don’t go anywhere since I’m always at home, but Detroit is home."
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