{"id":711698,"date":"2026-04-16T10:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T10:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/711698\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T10:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T10:56:08","slug":"humbled-former-pistons-all-star-resurrected-in-most-unlikely-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/711698\/","title":{"rendered":"Humbled former Pistons All-Star resurrected in most unlikely way"},"content":{"rendered":"

Six years ago, Andre Drummond was dumped by the Detroit Pistons, which was a humbling experience for a player who went from a $100 million deal to\u00a0nearly out\u00a0of the league. Drummond kept at\u00a0it,\u00a0and last night was the X-Factor in the play-in win that\u00a0sent\u00a0the 76ers to the playoffs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Drummond came up huge for Philly last night, as the 76ers were missing Joel Embiid (shocker), had to turn to Drummond for 31 minutes of action, and The Big Penguin delivered.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Drummond racked up 14 points, 10 rebounds, two assists, three steals and three blocks. He was the swing factor in\u00a0a game in which Philly was forced to start Adem Bona.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dre even put the exclamation point on the win with a late dagger 3-pointer, which has been the strangest part of his renaissance this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Andre Drummond can shoot?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Drummond went 2-of-3 from long range last night, which is not a sentence I ever wrote while he was playing with the Pistons.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Drummond never averaged more than .5 attempts per game from\u00a0long\u00a0range for the\u00a0Pistons,\u00a0and most of those were last-second heaves from beyond half court.\u00a0This season, Drummond averaged a respectable 35.6 percent from 3-point range on 1.4 attempts per game. Stretch Dre! Who saw that coming?<\/p>\n

Drummond was known as a rebounding machine and good defender, but his offensive game is what eventually let him down, which is why he went from a max contract to a guy looking for a job\u00a0practically overnight.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He hit a low\u00a0point\u00a0and it looked as though he\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0long for the league,<\/a> which would have been a shame, as\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0been one of the NBA\u2019s nicest guys and a player who has nothing but complimentary things to say about Detroit, a\u00a0place where he has often talked about wanting to return.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some idiotic Pistons fans still boo the guy, but Dre gave the Motor City his all and still has love for the team that drafted him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

You\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0have to love Dre, but you\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0help but admire the way he keeps grinding and finding ways to make an impact\u00a0in his 14th\u00a0season in the league.\u00a0He\u2019s\u00a0partially around because\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0a good teammate who\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0take anything off the table, but nights like last night remind fans that Drummond can still swing a game with effort and hustle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And\u00a0apparently\u00a0now\u00a03-point shooting, which was an element to his game I\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0anticipating.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you want more reasons to cheer for Dre,\u00a0he\u2019ll\u00a0now be taking on the hated Celtics, who\u00a0aren\u2019t\u00a0deep at the center position. Who knows, Embiid may be back for some or\u00a0all of\u00a0that series, but if not, we may see more of these types of nights from Andre Drummond.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Add us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Six years ago, Andre Drummond was dumped by the Detroit Pistons, which was a humbling experience for a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":711699,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3773],"tags":[7,296,188,3860,6,297],"class_list":{"0":"post-711698","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-pistons","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-detroit","10":"tag-detroit-pistons","11":"tag-detroitpistons","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-pistons"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116414026562781612","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=711698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/711699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}