1. Learn How to Co-Exist With Blake Griffin
The Pistons deployed a motion offense scheme last season that was different than their usual pick-and-roll heavy offense. This new offense gave Andre Drummond an opportunity to be the main hub of the offense and put his distribution abilities to the test. Andre Drummond responded well with a career-high 3 assists per game last season, nearly tripling his career-high of 1.1 assists. This was a welcome improvement to the previous seasons where Andre Drummond became a black hole when he got the ball in the post. He would rarely pass out and it led to way too many hook shots from the 3-10 foot range.
I discussed Andre Drummond’s efficiency above, and this new role is part of the reason for his improvement. Because he had the ball more and was given more responsibility with it, he started to trade out his bad post up attempts and long hook shot attempts with passes out of the post and passes to cutters.
However, when the Pistons added Blake Griffin via trade and ran the offense through him, Andre Drummond’s role as a distributor diminished a lot. He only averaged 1.59 assists per game after the Blake Griffin trade. That still would be a career-high, but Andre Drummond showed that he is a lot more capable of a distributor.
With a full training camp to get more comfortable with each other as well as a short trial run last season, Andre Drummond and Blake Griffin can hopefully get more comfortable with each other. And with them being more comfortable with each other, it should be a goal of Andre Drummond to become a secondary distributor to Blake Griffin, who will be the main distributor. They obviously aren’t as talented, but it should resemble something similar to what the New Orleans Pelicans did last season with Anthony Davis and DeMarcus Cousins.
The Pistons will have Reggie Jackson back healthy, but he works best as a scorer and is not the best distributor. The Pistons can run their offense through their bigs and they can zip passes to their wing cutters like Reggie Bullock, Glenn Robinson III, and Luke Kennard. They can also pass out of the post when a team decides to double them.
Dwane Casey wanted Andre Drummond to work on his ball handling and shooting, which means he plans on giving him more of role on offense. This doesn’t mean he needs to shoot more or score more and if he can return to a similar role he had as a distributor before Blake Griffin arrived, the Pistons offense should be improved.
