anyway, you asked for something other than my opinion based on watching the games: https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/d/drumman01.html#all_advanced-playoffs_advanced https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/g/gasolma01.html#all_advanced-playoffs_advanced gasol is consistently favored by most metrics, even and especially lately. and again, given one is a vet min and the other will eat up our only FA money, the choice is really easy for me.
Gasol avg 5pts 4rebs and 3 assists Drummond avg 9pts 11rebs both played about 20 minutes. I still think Drummond was more productive. 14 pts 13 rebs and 3 assists aren't bad numbers collectively though. If the perimeter players hadn't gagged, I think we still could have won that series even with AD out. Now on the money subject, I can't argue on that one. 800k was a great bargain on the investment with Drummond IMO. Moving forward if Andre took a minimum deal, I'd run it back. I would rather have a guy like Deadmon than Gasol though.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/d/dedmode01.html#all_advanced-playoffs_advanced i think what's coming clear is that gasol was a huge bargain. drummond was a bargain at the minimum, too. he will not be playing for the minimum next year. and likely because we started drummond without making him earn it, gasol is probably not going to be playing for the minimum next year, either. so, there's a good chance we'll be weaker at center next year while paying 6-7x the amount for the pleasure. it's just not great. i'd rather shore up other spots and keep bringing in vet min centers to eat minutes. though, again, we're unlikely to get someone as good as gasol again. especially after what we did with drummond.
Drives me crazy as a moderator when someone intentionally bends the rules, gets called on it in a polite way, then immediately plays the victim and implies that the issue is with the moderator being too "sensitive". Yes it was a personal jab. You are clearly intelligent enough to understand that it was. Why try to dodge it when it's there in plain English. Own up to it and move on.
I don't know..again I don't think the center position, was what caused us to lose to Phoenix. It's hard to say what a guy will accept salary wise, if a legit shot at a chip is within his reach. It is reasonable to expect a guy to go for the cash though. Montrez was an out of the blue move, it caused other moves to be made. I like him but I thought that we would use him more as a traditional power forward. That didn't turn out to be the case. If he opts in, I think we will end up moving him anyway like Javale. As far as Marc, he's not going to play big minutes anyway, I don't think he is all that upset about what happened. This is still his best shot at getting a ring before he retires. If Andre chases the money we will find another guy. This perimeter situation is more of a concern to me.
Why do people intentionally push moderators and admins buttons? Just never get it: if you don't like the moderation move someplace else. Just ends up taking up screenspace with nothing of value for the community
There’s more to the game than the basic per game averages, you’ve pointed out before while sort of dismissing his value as well, that Caruso is a player whose true value isn’t in the box score. Drummond averages more points. But how many points does Marc generate from making passes when allowed to run things from the top of the key/3point line? How many does he help us get by opening the paint up with his spacing for LeBron, AD, and whoever else to operate there or drive there? I’m not saying Marc is amazing, he’s clearly not the player he used to be, and we can look at better options next season (though for the minimum you likely won’t find many), but I am saying there more to one player being better than another by showing off their stat sheets. Another example would be Marc has been very clever on defense and blocked a lot of layups and such, before we faced a super fast team like Phoenix sure, but he did all year. Drummond gives up a lot of dunks. So in that case you’re subtracting from what Drummond is scoring how much he is giving up, which can at times be a lot, especially easy buckets. I would also agree with a point brought up early that one player isn’t tied to the other, Drummond can be a bad fit regardless of Marc’s existence, and Marc can be good or bad regardless of Drummond’s stats.
and advanced stats do capture some of these things, which is why i posted them. it can't be coincidence when a player's team consistently is better with him on the floor--or at least, it would be an incredible coincidence. i'm really not interested in pts/assists/rebounds as the measure of impact. they obviously matter, but roles matter, and team success matters most. this is why both drummond and schroder turned me off: they didn't even consider whether it was best for the team for them to come off the bench. they insisted on starting. it's just not a good mindset. i don't think marc was mad about being benched. i think he was mad about being benched before the ink was dry on drummond's contract. and that's fair.
Not a stamina issue. It's a mobility issue. He moves to slow to be able to get to his spots quicker. At least Marc has an excuse to be more stationary because he can pass/shoot. Drummond can't do either.
Some of us brought it up because Dre has shown he can get up in the air for lobs and blocks, infrequently, while a lot of the time around the rim area he seems like he can’t when working there on offense or defense. 10-15lbs loss at his size and a “little” better conditioning is no insult and could only help all that. With a full summer off and no injury to hamper his work. IF in his prime he still wants to get better.
Now the last part is the thing.... I agree. I just disagree on the fits, because I see it from a different viewpoint. I have to say that ultimately the two combined, turned out to be a decent center for what we want from the position IMO. I think Gasol gets more of a pass around here than Drummond, but I am not totally disregarding the plusses and minuses associated with either. Defensively...they both gave up lots of easy buckets in different ways, Gasol concedes the lane too easily to guards, Dre over commits to guards and gives up lobs and dunks. They are asked to do different things on the court offensively, so it's not that cut and dried when comparing the two. I totally understand what Marc's expected role was, and I also understand that Andre was brought in to do something else. To a degree it's a preference thing, I like bigs, always have, Kareem was my favorite player as a kid. I think bigs are undervalued in today's game, but they will be making a comeback soon. Not to veer too far off topic, but I'm not fond of Centers shooting threes, midrange jumpers no problem, 3 pt shots nah. Two things I didn't like about Gasol. 1. He didn't shoot the ball enough to be as effective in his role as I expected. Preferences aside, I saw some value in the concept of a high post center. Drawing centers out of the paint alone has value. The thing is that not shooting the ball, negated some of the advantages, because teams started guarding him with forwards and leaving the center in the paint. His role could be filled really by Kuz or Morris when that happens. 2. I thought he loafed a lot when it was only he and Trez, he definitely picked up his intensity level when Drum came here. That shouldn't ever be the case for a starter. Drum did what we asked offensively, but my two issues with him were 1. The hands were bad, I knew he was a bit clumsy but geesh, he fumbled it more than I expected. 2. I didn't think he banged as hard as he should have. I thought he tried to take too many charges or took the hands up approach on D, instead of laying the wood, ala Dwight. Maybe if he would have, guys wouldn't have been as comfortable hacking him as much as they did. He rarely got fouls calls for the amount of hacking he took. Physicality has impact on the game too, just like spacing. All things considered 20 mins a game isn't enough for either to be blamed for losing to Phoenix. I prefer the physical play, points and rebounds in the paint are beneficial to AD and Lebron too. If you are going to play in the high post, you need to hit shots. That's just my opinion.
Advance stats are ambiguous sometimes too. Who else is on the court with you, has an impact on those as well. If you rewatch the Phoenix series, every time Gasol came into the game, we lost ground on the score board. Was it all on him, I can't say, but it was a consistent occurrence. Stats and metrics.... KCP was a plus 16 in a game where he scored 0 pts and had 1 assist in 30 minutes. Meh...but yeah winning and losing is the most important stat.
And Drummond has lost everywhere he's been? Unless I'm mistaken. Talented dude. Maybe he comes back and proves me wrong. I'd love that.
That's not a fair way of looking at it, AD was losing in New Orleans too. Detroit and Cleveland were losing before and after he got to either. Kept losing after he left. Is that supposed to be totally on him? I'd like to see what he could do with a healthy Lebron and AD for a full season.
Yeah, I says thought AD was special. I thought he needed a change of scenery. Drummond has bounced around a few times with this last season being his only PO appearance. Just don't see the fit.
Why are you so adamant it wouldn’t help him to drop 10-15lbs and get in a little better, quicker shape in his prime? Do you think he “can’t” get better than he is now? If he wants big bucks again ever he ought to be trying to get better. People here have accused him falsely of not being able to jump over a piece of paper. But why is that?
He played 7 years in Detroit and half a year here and in Cleveland. He went to the playoffs in Detroit one year. Played with Blake, for some reason Drum gets all the flak from being in Detroit, not Blake. He made an ALL NBA team, lead the league in rebounding for 4 straight years. He is still the 4th active player in the league in career rebounding, in a much shorter career. The dude is not a scrub, but AD is a special talent, there aren't a lot of guys like him in the NBA.
