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25-under-25: Andre Drummond at No. 15

By Matt Rutkowski

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA - AUGUST 4: Andre Drummond of Team World practices for the 2017 Africa Game as part of the Basketball Without Borders Africa at the Ticketpro Dome on August 4, 2017 in Gauteng province of Johannesburg, South Africa. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2017 NBAE (Photo by Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images)
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA - AUGUST 4: Andre Drummond of Team World practices for the 2017 Africa Game as part of the Basketball Without Borders Africa at the Ticketpro Dome on August 4, 2017 in Gauteng province of Johannesburg, South Africa. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2017 NBAE (Photo by Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images) /
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The Step Back is rolling out its 25-under-25 list. Follow along with our rankings of the top 25 players under the age of 25.

I get the impression that the 25-under-25 series is, generally, not going to be approached from a place of despair. It’s all hope and draft picks and “who knows how high his ceiling is” faffery. The future is bright, and the present might have serviceable lighting as well. It’s all sunny until you get to Andre Drummond and then you find yourself staring at an eclipse and wondering why the insides of your eyes started to hurt.

This is now. But now wasn’t always now. In the past, then was now. The past’s now was a very different now than the now of now. Today’s now is “ow,” whereas it was once “wow.”

I’m confused too. This time last year was exciting. The Pistons just had their first playoff series since the core of the 2004 championship team decomposed into Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva. The team was young. The starting core was set. There were a few moves to shore up the bench, but largely the team was relying on internal improvement to push the team to the next level. I think that can be a reasonable thing to expect.

Drummond was the star to build around. He was Stan Van’s new Dwight Howard. All he had to do was shore up his defense and continue maturing as a scorer. Not being the worst free throw shooter in history would help too, but hey. Baby steps.

Last year happened. It happens over and over again in my dreams, and I wake up screaming.

On the surface, it should be a disappointment, but not much more. The team was seven games worse than the prior season, sure, but their starting point guard missed the first 21 games, and it was just a year ago that he was a fringe All-Star contender. This is simple enough. That’s a tough injury for a team with Detroit’s depth to overcome.

Yes and no. Mostly no. Let’s stay surface-level for a bit longer.

At a glance, these years look pretty similar, and maybe even a slight improvement in some areas. The free throw percentage nearly hit 40 percent! What a beastly man. So why did last year feel so different?

Let’s dig deeper. The advanced stats have to have something to tell us.

Again, nothing all that concerning. The catch-all advanced metrics basically even each other out. Fewer free throws is probably good considering he doesn’t make them. I don’t know. Maybe my memory is flawed. Maybe I’m being too harsh on the guy. He’s only 24 this year, and…

OH MY GOD NO

Okay. Shhhh. Breathe. That’s still far too basic. We have to check that against who he’s been playing with.

Chxxcck. CccccaaahhhhHHHH. Hcxkcxk.

My brain is bleeding.

It didn’t matter who he was with. There was no matter if it was Ish Smith or Reggie Jackson running the point. Every. Single. One of the 4-man combinations of note were in the negatives. There were no bright spots, just a monochromatic color palette of butt. Drummond was not symptomatic of the problem. He was the problem.

This is the same player that looked like this just a year prior:

That’s a near 20 point difference in year-to-year on/off rating. How does somebody do that? 3-point luck is to blame for six points of it, but that leaves about 14 unaccounted for with only one common link to be accountable.

Many of the same 4-man combinations held from the last two years — except in 2015-16 not a single one was in the negatives. Not a one.

I don’t know how to wrap my head around this. So much is the same, but so much is so horribly different.

The simplest way to show Drummond’s change from season to season is in RPM.

Here he is on the list of Centers in 2016.

Here he is on the list of Centers in 2017.

He fell more spots than there are teams in the NBA. This is only progress if you’re anticipating the rapture.

So we have two narratives that can’t coexist. Last year he was the 23-year-old All-Star center anchoring the youngest team in the playoffs. He was franchise cornerstone on the rise on a team on the rise. One more year of his squad building chemistry should only elevate him. Who knows how high his peak is?

This year he is a 24-year-old center who is never going to be good as Dwight Howard and is already falling off more swiftly than any precedent could predict. He was the reason a team in the hunt for the playoffs became unwatchable. He may have already peaked.

Next: 25-under-25 -- The best young players in the NBA

The Andre of actuality is somewhere in between these extremes. Even last year, he showed the capability to put up the 20-20 games that bring me so much joy. The underlying skill that makes those games possible haven’t disappeared, so one hopes that maybe he can again apply it. He’s too young to really worry about his athleticism waning. Whatever led to that hope before last season can still be there.

Unfortunately it has to coexist with everything we watched over the last year. He’s still young. He can still be very, very good. He’s more of a known commodity than anyone else on this list because we’ve seen him as an All-Star. And somehow what he will be going forward is a complete mystery.

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