Tay is so close to his career averages on a per minute basis in almost every stat. For instance, his TS% this year is .521 vs .522 for his career. The only real difference that I can find is that his blocks and his personal fouls are about half of what they usually are. It's pretty minor though since he is just a SF. His shot attempts and usage are down from the last few years, but still right on his career average. He was also too heavily used in the past few years IMO. We're just bored with him and he's a veteran on a team full of retools.
I don't think this can be stressed enough, and it is a really important point. I think Tay is a good player still. I just don't think he is a good fit here, but props to him for sticking it out and being a one team guy. I still have a lot of respect for him!
So Drummond and Monroe saw extensive time together last night, and were -19. To be fair, that's after their +3 vs. Indiana. Maybe Frank is onto something?
Tay's defense has dropped SIGNIFICANTLY. I'm not sure if the numbers support this claim, but if you watch the game, you can see players blowing by him left and right.
They were -2 during the stretches where they were both in the game. They were in the game together for 10:40 about. They were +4 while together in the Indiana game. They were + 3 while together in the Brooklyn game. Against Philly, they had no overlap. They were +2 against Cleveland. No overlap against Chicago. + 5 against Golden State. Frank isn't onto anything.
That's the weird thing. Some stats show that Tay is playing out of his mind on defense right now. He's holding the other team's small forwards to half the production that any other player on the Pistons are holding their guys to. However, his DRAT is almost the highest on the team. Tay has a PER of 13.9 at SF and his man is at 9.3 for the year. However, we are getting creamed while he's on the floor. I think that the other teams are just burning us at other positions and it makes him look bad. Put Dre and Monroe behind Prince for most of his minutes and he'll look much better as he'll stop jump shooters instead of sag off them.
Tim Duncan-Tiago Splitter, Greg Monroe-Andre Drummond, and more NBA frontcourt odd couples - Grantland
Andre Drummond agrees: Pistons' Andre Drummond agrees with how coach is handling him | Detroit Pistons | Detroit Free Press | freep.com
He's just being PC so that he doesn't tick off the guy that is holding his leash. Smart kid. In all seriousness, I think that Drummond appreciates the lack of pressure so far. 12,000 fans at the Palace, no expectations for winning, and he often comes into the game when we are losing. He's not been given any responsibility for the outcome of games yet on the downside, only upside when he's part of a comeback. I was never worried that we were making the kid disgruntled, just that we were needlessly losing games by sitting what looks like our most effective overall player. It's OK though, because we'll just get a slightly better draft pick and can maybe pick up a PG or SF version of Drummond in the next draft.
But is Drummond being handled better than Darko was? If your answer is yes, then patience with a plan is the answer.
The longer the Pistons take figuring out if Monroe and Drummond can co-exist the longer they have to wait and see what they can do with the rest of the roster. This will allow Joe to sign more guys to Stuckey and Jerebko like deals.
Despite averaging about half the minutes of the guys on this list, Dre ranks 8th in the NBA in dunks this year: 1) McGee- 81 2) Griffin- 80 3) Chandler- 78 4) Howard- 70 5) D. Jordan- 67 6) Iguadala- 51 7) Tristan T- 50 8) Drummond- 43 T8) Durant T8) Faried 11) Lebron- 40 T11) J Smith- 40 Some pretty nice company he's keeping. However, McGee is actually averaging less than 20 minutes per game as well, so he's even freakier. He benefits from the style of play too though. It's obvious that when he gets real minutes, we have a perennial top 3 NBA dunker on our hands.
