Blake Griffin and Andre Drummond Trade Prospects

Two former All-Stars in Blake Griffin and Andre Drummond have been publicly made available for trade by the Detroit Pistons and Cleveland Cavaliers, respectively.  Both teams have announced that they will sit the players out while they try to find a trade (more on some controversy regarding in the Bonus section), but it isn’t guaranteed that they are traded.  In this post, I will discuss whether I think Griffin and Drummond have a shot to be traded and who might go after them.

 

Will Blake Griffin be traded?

I think there is very little chance that he is traded.  He has played in 20 games and is averaging 31.3 MPG, but he has changed his style for this year to be largely off-ball and outside the arc and has been largely ineffective.  He only has 12.3 PPG (career low), 5.2 RPG, 3.9 APG, and 0.1 BPG (career low).  In comparison, his 2019 numbers (he was injured for most of 2020) were 24.5/7.5/5.4/0.4.  He also shooting more 3-pointers than 2-pointers for the first time in his career (6.2 per game vs. 4.9 per game) and has struggled in both, with a 31.5 3P% and a career low 42.9 2P% for a 36.5 FG% and 45.3 eFG%.  Even for his 2-pointers, most are away from the rim; only 14.4% of his field goals are in the 0-3FT range, where he is elite.  On top of that, his last dunk was in December 2019 (to his credit, he only played 18 games in the 2019-20 season, but he has yet to make one this season.  As a result, his advance metrics have plummeted:  he has a -1.5 OBPM, -0.1 OWS, -0.1 VORP, and his FTr has plummeted to 0.279.  He is also underwhelming defensively and worst of all, is owed just shy of $36.6M this year and almost $39M this year assuming he opts into his player option (spoiler alert:  he will).

I expect the most likely case would be if a team trying to get rid of another player on a large contract; I expect that possibilities for that are Cleveland (Kevin Love) or Washington (Russell Westbrook); it’s possible but less likely include Chicago (Otto Porter) or San Antonio (LaMarcus Aldridge) since both are on the last year of their deals.  Otherwise, there are only three teams I consider even possible:  Miami, Dallas, and Minnesota.  I don’t expect Miami to make this trade, but it’s possible by trading Griffin and Wayne Ellington (and likely at least one draft pick) for Andre Iguodala, Kelly Olynyk, and Meyers Leonard.  Dallas might consider it if they continue to struggle; James Johnson, Dwight Powell, and Maxi Kleber might be enough to do the deal, but Detroit might need to include a pick for this one too.  It’s not likely, but I could see Minnesota trading for him to bolster offense; they could include Ricky Rubio and Juan Hernangomez, but Malik Beasley would likely need to be included, which might give them reservations.  Maybe he gets traded this offseason, but it won’t happen during the season unless a team is desperate or delusional.  If they want to get rid of him so bad, they will need to buy him out.

 

Will Andre Drummond be traded?

Theoretically, it would make sense for a team to want him.  He is averaging 17.5 PPG/13.5 RPG/2.6 APG/1.6 SPG/1.2 BPG in 28.9 MPG, is great in the paint, can get almost any rebound in sight, and is a plus defender, but there are some caveats with him and his game.  He is a poor free throw shooter (59.7 FT% this season, his second highest), doesn’t get a lot of blocks for a center of his style, can’t do much outside the paint, and has only made the playoffs twice (I don’t discredit him much for that considering he played for Detroit for 7+ seasons and then was traded to Cleveland last season).  On top of that, he has struggled from the field compared to usual, shooting career low 47.4% from the field, 48.4% from 2, and 54.5% from the 0-3FT range.  That said, if you need a guy to get rebounds, play some defense in the paint, and get shots in the paint, he is worth looking into.

That said, trading him will be easier said than done due to his $28.8M contract for this season.  A team like Boston or Brooklyn would make so much sense for him, Boston’s trade exception is just not large enough for him and they’d be better to target shooting and Brooklyn doesn’t have the salary to match.  I wonder if he will be bought out instead, but Cleveland will likely exhaust all trade options first.  There are 4 teams that come to mind as realistic possibilities for this:  Dallas, Charlotte, Toronto, and Miami (San Antonio is a possibility as well, but I think they’re less than a 0.1% chance as a trade partner).  Dallas is least likely since I would expect they would target more spacing to pair with Luka Doncic instead.  This can happen by Dallas giving up Tim Hardaway Jr., Dwight Powell, and Tyrell Terry (draft situation would likely be messy with the picks they owe to New York).  Charlotte isn’t too likely unless they are either in 7^th and trying to avoid the play-in tournament or in 11^th and trying to make the playoffs.  While the most logical trade would include Cody Zeller, another center who could reach the buyout market, a cleaner trade with money would include the Cavs receiving Terry Rozier, Bismack Biyombo, and Malik Monk (I could see them finding a third team to give Rozier to); I could also see a 2^nd round pick being included in this trade as well.  Rozier has played well this season and Monk has had some good games, so they might prefer to keep those two.  Toronto would likely not want to give up Pascal Siakam, Fred VanVleet, or Kyle Lowry to get Andre Drummond, so that’s a little tricker; the most realistic trade I thought of was Andre Drummond and Dean Wade for Norman Powell, Aron Baynes, Stanley Johnson, Patrick McCaw, and two 2^nd rounders.  The biggest holdup is whether Drummond is even better than Powell (I think Powell is better for them).  Miami’s best offer would probably be Drummond for Kendrick Nunn, Andre Iguodala, Kelly Olynyk, and a future 1^st round pick (Likely adding in the pick since Nunn is a restricted free agent).  Still, unless they have a better plan for free agency next year, it might not be the worst idea to keep Nunn.  Ultimately, I don’t think there will be enough traction for Cleveland to get anything back for Drummond.  He might enter the buyout market instead.

 

Bonus:  Draymond Green’s comments regarding double standards

Draymond Green has come under some fire in the last couple days for discussing his opinions regarding treatment of players vs. teams regarding trades.  While the full statement is here, he effectively said that there is a double standard in how the NBA treats its players and its teams; the ideas that stood out to me the most were when he discussed were what players could say about situations versus what teams could say about situations and what the perception is for how it comes to players versus teams in trade situations.  There has been mixed response from some commentators, but overall, the general response from journalists is a positive (which I didn’t expect).

While there are a few things I disagree with Green on in his statements (for instance, I criticized James Harden for the way he attended clubs instead of training camp during a pandemic but didn’t care about the fact he made the request and I didn’t care that Kyrie Irving needed to take time off for his mental health but criticized him for not alerting the team), I agree with the majority of it.  While teams have the right to trade players where (unless there is a clause involved), I think it is professional for a team to inform the player that they are going to be traded (and even better if they give them a heads up if possible) and extremely unprofessional if they find out from someone other than the team or their agent.   This is the same logic that I use in real life too; I criticized ESPN when The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz found out that Greg Cote, one of their producers, was being laid off through the producer and ESPN never notified the Le Batard, Stugotz, or their executive producer.  In that same model, I criticized the Sacramento Kings for not telling DeMarcus Cousins that he was being traded to New Orleans through an interview at the All-Star Game.  After recently reading that John Wall had no idea he was being traded since the Washington Wizards stated to the public he wouldn’t be traded and never told him differently, I will criticize them for lying to their player and then blindsiding him after he gave a lot to the team and the community.  I will criticize the Sacramento Kings for trying to trade Bogdan Bogdanovic in a sign-and-trade that he did not consent to (and not just because they decided they didn’t want to pay him after already dishing out a lot of money for other players who aren’t as good).

Green’s points regarding statements made about trades/personnel moves probably is most reminiscent from his comments that resulted in a $50k fine for saying that Devin Booker needs to get out of Phoenix.  As for the accuracy of the statements, they have improved with drafting, trades, and development, but for several years this decade was the model franchise of what trades not to make and how to misjudge a player’s floor (as I believe they seemed to think that Dragan Bender, Marquese Chriss, and Josh Jackson were NBA ready when all were obviously not at the time of their draft).  I think the reason Green got fined for it was because even though he made statements while being a broadcaster, he is still a player which is technically considered tampering.  That said, I think the NBA is even inconsistent with teams regarding tampering; the Bucks were fined for saying they were planning on offering Giannis Antetokounmpo a supermax extension (which was the most obvious thing anyways) but both the Pistons and the Cavaliers are allowed to say they are planning on trading Griffin and Drummond.  While I didn’t oppose to Green being fined for those statements, Anthony Davis was fined for publicly requesting a trade.  While I don’t know if Davis requested one and they ignored it, I think that if they considered his statements to be tampering, they should say that team’s statements related to players should be tampering.  However, I don’t think discussions of trades in this regard should be considered tampering.  Saying to the public that you don’t want to be with a team that can’t win isn’t tampering; that’s saying something that everyone can see in body language and is something that becomes fairly obvious.  Then again, a team saying they would like to trade a player is also not tampering; that’s just stating that a player is available to be traded.

While I think the general public isn’t consistently harsh on players who want to be traded, I think Green makes a good point about there being a difference in the public perception of a player requesting a trade.  I personally don’t care if a player asks for a trade (and sometimes comment whether I would if I were said player), but there are several people that don’t act like that.  When Anthony Davis requested a trade, he was portrayed as the biggest villain; that said, they struggled at that point, they often struck out with draft picks/trades/signings, and had a lot of bad luck with injuries.  Davis realized that there was a certain ceiling for the team and at that point wanted to be somewhere he felt could win a championship during his prime.  One with even more outcry was Jimmy Butler with Minnesota; while there’s a case to be made that he didn’t handle it in an appropriate way (I wouldn’t make that case), I agree with his reasoning.  He was frustrated by the fact that the Timberwolves favored two younger players, one who didn’t know how to win and seemed to be broken until he got to Golden State (Andrew Wiggins) and one who still has yet to show that he cares if he wins (Karl-Anthony Towns) by paying them maximum deals and not caring as much about Butler.  While Butler is older, we have to keep in mind that in that season, the Timberwolves went 10-13 without him and almost fell out of playoff contention late during a run where he was injured.  That’s just him realizing that Minnesota is incompetent and not prioritizing winning. 

Speaking of which, Green also made a point that players cannot criticize organizations.  Realistically, I’m not quite sure the logistics about how teams can criticize players without being fined, but compared to the media, commentators, or the general public, I’d imagine that does feel frustrating.  As I’m not quite sure of the league’s perspective on teams criticizing players (I don’t believe Bryan Colangelo was punished by the league for his burner accounts, but I’m not sure about other cases), I don’t feel quite comfortable commenting on commenting on this too in depth.  That said, if teams can comment publicly on not wanting players without being fined, that is a double standard.  I will say that in free agency, star players often have the last laugh in showing what they feel about a team while in free agency:  in particular, just remember how the Knicks bragged about how they would be able to sign two superstars and wound up with Julius Randle (who’s been great this year), Marcus Morris, Taj Gibson, and Elfrid Payton….

The comments that started it all stemmed from the fact that Andre Drummond was sitting out during a game because the Cavs planned to trade him.  In certain cases, I support sitting a player due to a trade; namely, if a trade is close to finalized and is going to happen unless something drastic happens (like a player fails a physical or the league doesn’t approve it for some reason).  Andre Drummond started sitting out on the 14^th and no trade has been made yet, so I don’t think that is the case.  As I mentioned above, I don’t even think he’s guaranteed to be traded.  I think it’s more humorous for the case of Blake Griffin since nobody is going to trade for him.  I keep thinking back to when Tyreke Evans sat out for 2 weeks in 2018 because Memphis was going to trade him only to decide to keep him and were criticized ruthlessly.  The following year, the NBA threatened to fine the Pelicans if they sat out Anthony Davis after he requested a trade, making me wonder where the Grizzlies’ fine was.  This was a move that made me realize the NBA’s double standard among certain teams; now, Draymond Green is going the next step and bringing the double standard between players and the teams to light.