Andre Drummond: I’ve done everything individually, accolade-wise, my goal now is to win

He did, however, finish that season as the Brooklyn Nets starting center after being traded there on Feb. 10, 2022. After that season, he signed a contract to be Nikola Vučević’s backup with the Chicago Bulls. It was a role at which Drummond excelled the past two seasons. “Do I want to start? Do I think I’m a starter? Sure, who wouldn’t?” he said. “It is what it is. I’m not about how you start. It’s about if you are winning a game, how you impact the team. I don’t even look at stats anymore. I look at my plus-minus and see if I affected the game in any way. “If I had a bad plus-minus and I had eight points and 10 rebounds, that’s not a good night. I’d rather have … plus-3 and zero points. That means I impacted the game, someway and somehow helped us win. I’m content with the small victories.” -via The Philadelphia Inquirer / December 23, 2024

Until his first Sixers stint during the 2021-22 season, Drummond only imagined himself as a starter. That was understandable, considering he was one during his tenures with the Pistons, Cavs, and Los Angeles Lakers. “The first time was when I came here,” Drummond said. “That was the first time I came off the bench for anybody.” How was it? “That … was awful,” he said. “It was a humbling experience. I tell everybody this. It is a humbling experience coming from playing 38 to 40 minutes to coming off the bench and playing behind one of the best centers to play the game. “So it was very humbling, but also it gave me a different outlook of the game that there’s other ways I can impact the game besides playing 40-plus minutes.” -via The Philadelphia Inquirer / December 23, 2024

Golden State, as one recent example, offered multiple first-round draft picks for Caruso at last February’s trade deadline and was even willing to part with Moses Moody, along with other players, sources said, in a trade construction that could have also landed Torrey Craig and Andre Drummond with Golden State. That’s the same Moody, of course, who came to terms with the Warriors on a Caruso-esque contract extension in October: $39 million over three years. -via marcstein.substack.com / December 21, 2024