Free agent fits: How Andre Drummond can help Bulls originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago
The Chicago Bulls entered the 2022 offseason intent on adding frontcourt depth and rim protection to complement starting center Nikola Vučević.
With free agency just about in the rearview, it’s clear the team’s bet is that Andre Drummond addresses one or both needs, one way or another.
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Here is a breakdown of Drummond’s fit with the Bulls, how he can help the team, and the likelihood of his best outcomes materializing:
The fit
The Bulls’ backup center spot was a revolving door last season, from Alize Johnson out of training camp, to Tony Bradley early in the season, to Derrick Jones Jr. in small-ball configurations, to Tristan Thompson down the stretch.
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Drummond, 28. is no longer the All-Star stat-sheet stuffer he once was. But he’s a more viable option to understudy Vučević than any of the above names. For evidence, look at the capable job he did backing up Joel Embiid in Philadelphia at the beginning of last season and the productive stint he had in Brooklyn — averaging 11.8 points and 10.3 rebounds in 22.3 minutes per game — after being traded there as part of the James Harden deal.
How Drummond can help the Bulls
Drummond remains an elite rebounder. Even last season — when, for the first time in his NBA career, he came off the bench more than he started — he logged a 90th percentile defensive rebounding rate (25.8 percent) and 99th percentile offensive rebounding rate (18.2 percent), according to Cleaning the Glass.
The Bulls, meanwhile, ranked 28th in the NBA in offensive rebounding rate and second-chance points per game (11.1) last season — and even their generally solid defensive rebounding rate (73.5 percent, seventh in the NBA) sank by nearly four percentage points (75 to 71.2 percent, which would have ranked 24th in the league) in Vučević’s off minutes. All areas Drummond can help, albeit marginally.
Drummond is also an underrated passer, a skill set he flashed during his time with the 76ers, when he logged a 15.7 percent assist rate (86th percentile for centers) in 49 games, per Cleaning the Glass. The Bulls should be able to run some second unit offense through him, which they couldn’t say about any of last season’s reserve bigs.
And, it can not be stressed enough, if he is a replacement level NBA player, he would be markedly better than any of the Bulls’ depth options at center last season.
One burning question
So, rim protection?
Standing 6-foot-10 and without eye-popping vertical athleticism, Drummond is not the prototypical rim protector fans envisioned when general manager Marc Eversley declared complementary rim protection one of the team’s biggest needs on draft night.
It is possible that, provided better health, the Bulls’ pack of perimeter pests — Lonzo Ball, Alex Caruso, Ayo Dosunmu — will cover some of Drummond’s defensive limitations, as they did for Vučević at the beginning of last season. Or that Patrick Williams’ development will provide an element of weakside rim protection alongside them.
But it’s a question mark at best for the Bulls’ first free agent signee of the 2022 period. As a true center, so is his relative lack of versatility (don’t expect him and Vučević to play together, for example).
Still, at the very least, Bulls fans can expect a marginal upgrade at a spot that was one of the roster’s largest holes last season.
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