Pistons Andre Drummond and the concept of "Other team Thirst"

First of all, I'm in my mid thirties . . . old enough to still remember how to spell thirty, or remember writing that stuff out on a personal cheque. That said, I'm like that overly hip uncle that younger people roll their eyes at. I'm used to it. Secondly, "Other team Thirst" is the concept of being jealous and wanting a player on another team. This isn't new, only the lingo is. For the longest time fans of other teams have greatly desired and admired the play of Utah Jazz forward Paul Millsap. He was kind of under the radar for a few seasons, but his production was quite apparent. In today's words "Real talk: Paul Millsap tho; watching (non-hustling bigman on my team) makes me mighty thirsty for some of that Sap."

Clearly I don't even know what tone, tense, or terms I'm writing in or attempting to use / attempting to make fun of anymore.That's fine. You're used to that too.

Right now the world is crushing on Detroit Pistons bigman, rookie, and All-Around defensive genius Andre Drummond. When the Pistons drafted him I just KNEW he was going to flourish alongside Greg Monroe. He has. ESPN In$ider just wrote some awesome things about him -- essentially if he keeps his level of production up he could turn out to be the player who finishes with one of the highest PERs ever as a teenager. Yeah. He's 19. And he's having a pretty good season. A really good season. We saw a little bit of it in person last week. I won't link ESPN, but here's the SB Nation Pistons blog post about it.

Part of being good in the NBA is being good, and also being used well. Drummond comes off the bench, has a defined role, and on offense (not his forte) he's being spoon fed towards his talents. The Pistons don't post him up and then complain when he doesn't produce -- they get him the ball off of cuts or alley oops. And he finishes well. How well? He's almost shooting 60 fg% this year. That's in addition to being an 7 and 7 player who plays good defense. How good? 3 blocks per 36 minutes.

Advanced stats love him, when he's on the floor, he's getting 1 out of ever 4 defensive rebounds possible. That's 25 dreb%, which is almost 10% higher than our best player.

I like that he's getting minutes, and he's put in a situation where he's expected to do things he's good at, and not expected to do things he can't. He's being used correctly. And it's making a lot of NBA fans thirsty.

We have some great youth as well, I'd love for things to work out for our guys. I think they will. But right now it's guys like Drummond who have me 'thirsty'. Well, maybe I'm just 'sour' at how our lottery picks are still being used. Other teams' are getting a quicker return on their investments. I wonder why that is? Anyway, let's get back on topic:

1. Andre is playing well.

2. He's making a difference on the court as a 19 year old.

3. Just look at this:

4. Thirst is real.