The Andre Drummond Thread

[RealKingofCleve]

Let's be honest here, Jack is right. This thread was put here for that very purpose. There are Drummond, JV, and Lebron threads on this site. How many other players that are not playing for the Cavs presently have threads here? Not many, and they usually don't last more then a few weeks.

I wanted Drummond too. I still would like to have him on the team. But, that doesn't mean I am not going to look at things objectively.

What the hell does this even mean? You say you are looking at things objectively, what are all the posters who love Drummond's game doing? The kid goes out and makes a handful of highlight plays every game while still playing winning basketball. Oh and he's 18 years old, and he's got a frame paired with athleticism that is nearly unheard of, and he has over a 22 per. But anyone who is disappointed the Cavs passed on him should be discredited. Great point of view from you.

[blue_kahuna]

Let's be honest here, Jack is right. This thread was put here for that very purpose. There are Drummond, JV, and Lebron threads on this site. How many other players that are not playing for the Cavs presently have threads here? Not many, and they usually don't last more then a few weeks.

I wanted Drummond too. I still would like to have him on the team. But, that doesn't mean I am not going to look at things objectively.

What he's basically eluding to is the fact that anyone who likes Drummond as a player was in the Drummond bandwagon before he got drafted. That's completely inaccurate. Although the majority of posters in this thread may have wanted us to draft Drummond, there are people who post or read this thread that may be warming up to this guy simply because they like seeing him play and develop?

It's funny how he brought up Jonas but their draft history is totally opposite. Jonas was thought of as having all the tools to be something great seeing how he dominated players his own age but Drummond got compared to every big man bust in the history of the NBA based purely on his 1 year at UConn.

If people don't like this thread, they don't have to post in it lol. It's like they want a reaction or something. Coming in here with a one liner "I don't know why this thread exist" and patting each other on the back makes you look stupid.

Like I said, there are many NBA players that I like that are not on the Cavs but Drummond's development is fast becoming the most intriguing. That's another reason why the thread exist.

[Fuggles]

What the hell does this even mean? You say you are looking at things objectively, what are all the posters who love Drummond's game doing? The kid goes out and makes a handful of highlight plays every game while still playing winning basketball. Oh and he's 18 years old, and he's got a frame paired with athleticism that is nearly unheard of, and he has over a 22 per. But anyone who is disappointed the Cavs passed on him should be discredited. Great point of view from you.

He just told you.

[Scholar]

What the hell does this even mean? You say you are looking at things objectively, what are all the posters who love Drummond's game doing? The kid goes out and makes a handful of highlight plays every game while still playing winning basketball. Oh and he's 18 years old, and he's got a frame paired with athleticism that is nearly unheard of, and he has over a 22 per. But anyone who is disappointed the Cavs passed on him should be discredited. Great point of view from you.

You clearly have no clue what I meant. Maybe you should actually read the comment I was replying to. Just maybe that would help you because what you posted had very little to do with what I said. I think there are certainly some posters who just use as a "shove it in your face" thread. A sour grapes thread. There is no question that is being done for at least some of the posters. That is in essence what Jack said, and I agree with him.

Btw, why did you choose to ignore the fact that I have stated repeatedly that I would love to have him on this team. That I wanted us to draft him, and was greatly disappointed that we didn't. I just don't whine, gripe, and bitch about it.

Yes, I definitely have a great point of view here. Glad you noticed.

[RchfldCavRaised]

Drummond has good games + Dion has bad games = Cavs apologists come into Drummond thread and pick fights over stupid things like punctuation and the purpose of threads being created.

Drummond has bad games + Dion has good games = Cavs apologists come into Drummond thread and call him Kwame Thabeet and call Waiters the next Dwayne Wade.

If you come into the Drummond thread, for any reason, the you have already acknowledging we screwed the pooch by passing on the kid. I bet every team who drafted 1-8 has a thread on their board where the locals are sharpening their pitchforks and gathering tar so they can sacrifice the local GM.

Message boards are where we do this.

In the case of Andre Drummond, its obvious we missed a guy who should have been one of the first two picks in this draft. Quite a few posters here said that before the draft. Quite a few never thought we would have a chance to draft him once we got the 4th pick. Quite a few lost their shit when we drafted someone who we did not spend all spring talking about and who did not have the upside of Drummond.

Me, I am thoroughly unimpressed with our college to pro player evaluations. I am fearful of the next draft, because I feel that even if we luck up and get a top 5 pick, our front office locks in on specific players and has tunnel vision. At one point in time, I was fearful we would be the organization who always passes on top shelf talent for mid shelf talent with great personality, but that fear was put to bed this past season when we passed on top shelf talent for mid shelf talent with personality/character concerns.

I would trade Dion Waiters and our 13 unprotected first for Andre Drummond today if Detroit were stupid enough.

Until they are, Ill just come here and keep hoping my keystrokes are read by the basketball gods so that the next time we are at the podium we dont draft so conservatively.

[JiggleIt]

I get your passion for Drummond, Rch. But your distaste for the Cavs front office based off of four picks is a little suspect. Kyrie is one of the best players in the game in year 2. Tristan was NOT considered an obvious safe pick at the time in a draft that was honestly kind of shitty and has yet to prove otherwise. This far, Valanciunas has been ok. No better than Tristan was last year. And Tristan has been absolutely studly lately. And they're almost the same age with JV having more professional basketball experience than Tristan. I guess you can project all you want, but at the moment Tristan is leading that race by a longshot and appears to be getting better every game.

I feel like you're picking a very odd time to make a judgment call on the Cavs when they hit the lotto on one pick, appear to have hit on the second pick in a shit draft and the story is yet to be told for Waiters and Zeller. Waiters has looked tremendous at times, ok at others and bad some nights as well. Drummond has been mostly very good. There's no doubt about that.

But your characterization of the Cavs front office is off and very, very premature IMO. The Waiters vs Drummond judgment is extremely premature because both have a lot of developing to do. I don't know where you get off calling him a mid tier player this early in his career. It's so friggin early and he's proven that he can do things that not many players can do, in particular splitting defenders, sometimes multiple times on the same drive. That's a tremendous ability, especially for a guy who has shown the potential to light it up from all over the court. Drummond might end up being great... But so might Waiters. It's year friggin 1. This same time last year, you had Tristan being the type of bust that gets guys fired. Now, a lot of people look foolish on him...but not the Cavs. They look pretty wise at the moment.

As for Zeller...he was the 17th pick in the damn draft. Nobody behind him is doing a damn thing. I do think it would be very fair to make a judgment on him next year given his age and skill set. If Zeller isn't thicker, stronger and meaner this time next year while playing the type of polished ball he did at the college level...I think we can fairly say he MIGHT not develop more. But the expectations were never real high for him or any other 17 pick anyways.

Bottom line: you're choosing the strangest of times to make these assertions. You need to give the Tristan vs JV battle another two years to see if JV CATCHES UP with Tristan (not the other way around, the Waiters vs Drummond at least another year and the Zeller vs ? battle another year of development.

[Jack Brickman]

What he's basically eluding to is the fact that anyone who likes Drummond as a player was in the Drummond bandwagon before he got drafted. That's completely inaccurate. Although the majority of posters in this thread may have wanted us to draft Drummond, there are people who post or read this thread that may be warming up to this guy simply because they like seeing him play and develop?

It's funny how he brought up Jonas but their draft history is totally opposite. Jonas was thought of as having all the tools to be something great seeing how he dominated players his own age but Drummond got compared to every big man bust in the history of the NBA based purely on his 1 year at UConn.

If people don't like this thread, they don't have to post in it lol. It's like they want a reaction or something. Coming in here with a one liner "I don't know why this thread exist" and patting each other on the back makes you look stupid.

Like I said, there are many NBA players that I like that are not on the Cavs but Drummond's development is fast becoming the most intriguing. That's another reason why the thread exist.

I think you completely missed my point on Jonas. It was quite simple. When Jonas was playing decent earlier this year and Thompson was struggling, people were posting there every day to remind everyone else that they wanted Jonas all along. Sure, they didn't say it in those exact words, but that was the implication. Now that Tristan is in full on beast mode and Jonas hasn't been able to stay on the court due to injuries, you don't see a single person posting in that thread. In fact, before I bumped it, the last post was a tumbleweed gif.

And if you want an example of what I'm talking about, look no further than RchfldCavRaised's post above. He basically wrote an entire essay about how much smarter he is than the Cavs front office and how Drummond is great and Dion sucks. Posts like that are the reason this thread exists.

You'll notice that I very rarely comment on Drummond's actual play because, to be honest, I don't really care. I don't waste my time pining on what could have been, longingly looking up box scores after every Detroit game and cursing Grant for his unwillingness to draft the guy. We didn't draft him. He's not a Cavalier. Get the fuck over it.

[RchfldCavRaised]

I feel like you're picking a very odd time to make a judgment call on the Cavs when they hit the lotto on one pick, appear to have hit on the second pick in a shit draft and the story is yet to be told for Waiters and Zeller.

Here is the thing Jig.

That last post, in the context of what was happening in this thread, was really just saying please stop trying to justify passing on Andre Drummond again and again. To answer the timing aspect of it. I flipped out just like everyone else in the world when Kyrie casually walked down and KILLED Toronto last night. So Im not trying to kill that mood or be the new JonfromVA.

I like the overall direction the front office has this team going in. I know that it is only made possible by having an owner who thinks outside the box and is so deadset on winning that he would commit to throwing money at obtaining assets the way he is allow Grant to do it.

I LOVE the flexibility that Grant afforded us by not signing guys to contracts like other GMs/Owners have done.

BUT, I still dont like choosing lower tier prospects to fill specific positions/roles as opposed to picking the best talent.

That is what my gripe with our talent evaluation process will always be about, for this era that is being built. That is a NFL draft model or a MLB draft model. Not an NBA draft model.

In the short term, everyone is super excited because we have been one of the only teams who's GM and ownership had the foresight to tank and cut costs and not do ANYTHING in free agency. In the short term, that looks like a BRILLIANT move, because it seems as if we may have lucked into a guy who is perfectly skilled and developed for where the NBA is headed with style and rules changes and how it is being marketed.

However, just like with all of the excitement that is now going around making Mareese Speights into the next Zach Randolph for us moving forward for the next 5-7 years, I have to be the guy to point to a bigger picture in regard to the pieces we have and are adding around Kyrie.

I have yet to even acknowledge all of the 2014 speculation, because I myself had a pretty damn good source who guaranteed me that we had nothing to worry about at decision time back in 2010. However, Ill break my embargo and acknowledge it just this one time right now for the sake of proving this point...

Unless there is a 100% guarantee that 2014 is bringing in an already established top tier NBA star, then I will continue to believe the way we approach drafting is flawed and we are setting ourselves up for mediocrity at best and no serious contention during Kyrie's era here.

Tristan looks better, sure.

Dion will mature some, and be dangerous.

Tyler will settle in and find his niche and be dependable.

But none of them are the 5 star, blue chip, shoe-in all star kind of guys that every championship team has 2.5 of every single time they win a title.

Each of those guys are 0.5 kind of guys. Not 1.0.

And Im not talking about the beautiful, fandom, santa claus exists kind of evaluating these guys that 80% of the board comes here and believes truly exists in this game. Im talking from a realistic, history has proven this sport is more business than true competition kind of point of view.

Media Darlings are the BIG difference between 0.5 guys and 1.0 guys to be honest. And no amount of Tristan licking his own bobblehead dolls is going to make him a 1.0 suddenly. It can definitely happen some places. The NBA is setup for LA and NY to make .5 guys into .75 guys and sometimes 1.0 guys when they really have a unique story they can sell.

Cleveland and a few other markets like that, are the places where guys who are .75 are turned into .5 guys (through no fault of our own, we support our team)

It is what it is. The NBA will always trail far behind the NFL because that is what the businessmen in the league decide to do, in regard to marketing the big cities and their players more.

I love Dan Gilberts competitive/against the grain style. Ive read up on him and try to find things like his DVP company, to watch how the upper management/structure is setup so I can try to trust the FO more with the vision they are trying to see through.

And I always come back to knowing how much of a business this game is, and knowing that in that regard, we need to play the business game of getting guys who are 1.0 through the draft (unless we have a guarantee of one coming in 14 FA) because the system is not setup for us to draft and .5 and have them be anything more than complimentary.

Sorry for the riddle post. Just explaining how Im looking at a much bigger long term picture than anything.

[Gimme Some Mo]

Whaaaaaat???????? ^^^^^^^

[RchfldCavRaised]

Whaaaaaat???????? ^^^^^^^

Gimme Some mo... You're Welcome

[RealKingofCleve]

You clearly have no clue what I meant. Maybe you should actually read the comment I was replying to. Just maybe that would help you because what you posted had very little to do with what I said. I think there are certainly some posters who just use as a "shove it in your face" thread. A sour grapes thread. There is no question that is being done for at least some of the posters. That is in essence what Jack said, and I agree with him.

Btw, why did you choose to ignore the fact that I have stated repeatedly that I would love to have him on this team. That I wanted us to draft him, and was greatly disappointed that we didn't. I just don't whine, gripe, and bitch about it.

Yes, I definitely have a great point of view here. Glad you noticed.

I do understand what you said, and thats why I said most people in this thread just love Drummond's game. Not everyone in here just wants to throw it in people's faces, just disappointed the Cavs didn't make the best selection last draft.

[JiggleIt]

Here is the thing Jig.

That last post, in the context of what was happening in this thread, was really just saying please stop trying to justify passing on Andre Drummond again and again. To answer the timing aspect of it. I flipped out just like everyone else in the world when Kyrie casually walked down and KILLED Toronto last night. So Im not trying to kill that mood or be the new JonfromVA.

I like the overall direction the front office has this team going in. I know that it is only made possible by having an owner who thinks outside the box and is so deadset on winning that he would commit to throwing money at obtaining assets the way he is allow Grant to do it.

I LOVE the flexibility that Grant afforded us by not signing guys to contracts like other GMs/Owners have done.

BUT, I still dont like choosing lower tier prospects to fill specific positions/roles as opposed to picking the best talent.

That is what my gripe with our talent evaluation process will always be about, for this era that is being built. That is a NFL draft model or a MLB draft model. Not an NBA draft model.

In the short term, everyone is super excited because we have been one of the only teams who's GM and ownership had the foresight to tank and cut costs and not do ANYTHING in free agency. In the short term, that looks like a BRILLIANT move, because it seems as if we may have lucked into a guy who is perfectly skilled and developed for where the NBA is headed with style and rules changes and how it is being marketed.

However, just like with all of the excitement that is now going around making Mareese Speights into the next Zach Randolph for us moving forward for the next 5-7 years, I have to be the guy to point to a bigger picture in regard to the pieces we have and are adding around Kyrie.

I have yet to even acknowledge all of the 2014 speculation, because I myself had a pretty damn good source who guaranteed me that we had nothing to worry about at decision time back in 2010. However, Ill break my embargo and acknowledge it just this one time right now for the sake of proving this point...

Unless there is a 100% guarantee that 2014 is bringing in an already established top tier NBA star, then I will continue to believe the way we approach drafting is flawed and we are setting ourselves up for mediocrity at best and no serious contention during Kyrie's era here.

Tristan looks better, sure.

Dion will mature some, and be dangerous.

Tyler will settle in and find his niche and be dependable.

But none of them are the 5 star, blue chip, shoe-in all star kind of guys that every championship team has 2.5 of every single time they win a title.

Each of those guys are 0.5 kind of guys. Not 1.0.

And Im not talking about the beautiful, fandom, santa claus exists kind of evaluating these guys that 80% of the board comes here and believes truly exists in this game. Im talking from a realistic, history has proven this sport is more business than true competition kind of point of view.

Media Darlings are the BIG difference between 0.5 guys and 1.0 guys to be honest. And no amount of Tristan licking his own bobblehead dolls is going to make him a 1.0 suddenly. It can definitely happen some places. The NBA is setup for LA and NY to make .5 guys into .75 guys and sometimes 1.0 guys when they really have a unique story they can sell.

Cleveland and a few other markets like that, are the places where guys who are .75 are turned into .5 guys (through no fault of our own, we support our team)

It is what it is. The NBA will always trail far behind the NFL because that is what the businessmen in the league decide to do, in regard to marketing the big cities and their players more.

I love Dan Gilberts competitive/against the grain style. Ive read up on him and try to find things like his DVP company, to watch how the upper management/structure is setup so I can try to trust the FO more with the vision they are trying to see through.

And I always come back to knowing how much of a business this game is, and knowing that in that regard, we need to play the business game of getting guys who are 1.0 through the draft (unless we have a guarantee of one coming in 14 FA) because the system is not setup for us to draft and .5 and have them be anything more than complimentary.

Sorry for the riddle post. Just explaining how Im looking at a much bigger long term picture than anything.

I followed you until you got into the Dewey Decimal System...at which point I picked up another book and started reading it instead.

But seriously...who's to say they can't get that superstar in this next draft? And I'll say it again...

GRANT, PLEASE DO NOT DRAFT THE AWKWARD WHITE GUY.

I DON'T CARE HOW "POLISHED" and "NBA READY" he looks.

IMO, his year is the year where you take the boom or bust guy, if it's a choice between that and a sure-fire "solid" NBA player. It's time for a super-athlete. I feel like Nerlens Noel could be that guy. I actually think there's minimal chance that he will bust. If the guy develops even a couple offensive shots, he could be an absolute monster on both sides of the ball. He's already an obvious DPOY candidate just coming into the league.

[NarlCavs]

Who knows how things will ultimately develop but at least right now the idea of facing Drummond in the same division for the next decade or so scares me more than the idea of facing Waiters for the next decade would be if he was on the Pistons.

[Triumph36]

But seriously...who's to say they can't get that superstar in this next draft? And I'll say it again...

probably because there is no guarantee they will even have the opportunity to "get that superstar in the next draft?"

though i was (and still am) in the jonas > tristan camp, i don't think either could've ended up being that player. but drummond is a different story. that is where i think they had a great - and really, their first - opportunity to put a legit future star (i hate the use of the word superstar) next to kyrie. passing on jonas might've been the wrong decision, but i think passing on drummond was both the wrong decision and - like rchfld - one of the major decisions that could prevent the cavs from contending anytime soon

[RchfldCavRaised]

I followed you until you got into the Dewey Decimal System...at which point I picked up another book and started reading it instead.

But seriously...who's to say they can't get that superstar in this next draft? And I'll say it again...

GRANT, PLEASE DO NOT DRAFT THE AWKWARD WHITE GUY. I DON'T CARE HOW "POLISHED" and "NBA READY" he looks.

IMO, his year is the year where you take the boom or bust guy, if it's a choice between that and a sure-fire "solid" NBA player. It's time for a super-athlete. I feel like Nerlens Noel could be that guy. I actually think there's minimal chance that he will bust. If the guy develops even a couple offensive shots, he could be an absolute monster on both sides of the ball. He's already an obvious DPOY candidate just coming into the league.

If Grant passes on Noel and takes Len instead because he fits next to TT better, I am going to await your meltdown.