(Editor’s note: Pistons.com continues a five-part series examining the top five storylines of training camp, which gets under way later this month. Today: Andre Drummond’s quest to improve his free-throw shooting.)
There are two major reasons why Andre Drummond’s free-throw attempts jumped a startling 60 percent from 2014-15 to 2015-16. And neither one is rooted in Drummond becoming a more polished post scorer who forces teams into fouling him.
He’s come a long way as a back-to-the-basket scoring threat since breaking into the NBA in 2012 as an 18-year-old, for sure. But Drummond’s free throws rocketed to 586 attempts last season – up 221 over the previous season and 258 more than 2013-14, his first season as an NBA starter – mostly because (a) the Pistons improved and took more frequent leads in winning 12 more games than the previous season and (b) more coaches have decided to employ the intentional fouling strategy.
Many coaches hold their nose while doing it and bemoan the fact the NBA hasn’t dealt more aggressively with a tactic that slows the game to a crawl and is widely despised by its fan base. Ultimately, though, coaches do what helps win games. And as long as Drummond is making barely one in three free throws – he shot a career-worst .355 last season – the Pistons can expect to continue seeing the Hack-a-Dre tool used more often than not.
It’s not often a player’s free-throw form and performance will rank among the most heavily scrutinized items of a team’s preseason, but the case of Drummond’s foul shooting and its ramifications for the Pistons is a clear exception.
Different coaches figure to have different thresholds for dissuading the use of intentional fouling, but it’s fair to say that Drummond consistently making even half of his foul shots would curb the frequency of its employment.
After two years of attempting to remedy the situation with coaching and endless hours of foul-shooting practice, Stan Van Gundy made it clear as last season ended that a different approach was in order. He met with Drummond for a meeting of the minds and they explored different approaches.
Both have been reluctant to discuss their plan of attack in any detail other than to say what we won’t see: radical solutions. Drummond isn’t going to shoot with his left hand, from beyond the 15-foot stripe or underhanded. To the extent Drummond has displayed mechanical flaws in his shooting stroke, Van Gundy believes the greater issue is psychological. Both player and coach have expressed public confidence that the results will be markedly better in 2016-17, but nobody really knows until he’s forced to execute under game conditions.
As the Pistons continue to progress – the talent base is infinitely improved since Van Gundy’s arrival 28 months ago – and their expectations rise accordingly, the greater the stakes in deciding how to counter the intentional fouling strategy. Shooting 35 percent takes the decision out of Van Gundy’s hands, essentially. No team can win when it produces something less than a point per possession.
Shooting close to 55 percent effectively nullifies the strategy beyond the occasional “give it a shot and see what happens” moments.
The gray area comes somewhere between those extremes. Drummond’s high-water mark in the NBA came in 2013-14, when he shot .418 but rarely encountered intentional fouling as the Pistons staggered to a 29-win season. He’s shot a cumulative .368 in two seasons under Van Gundy.
And that’s why each of the two backup centers Van Gundy has signed in free agency the past two summers – Aron Baynes in 2015, Boban Marjanovic in 2016 – were players with a history of strong foul shooting. Baynes shot .865 with San Antonio before joining the Pistons and hit at a .764 clip last season. Marjanovic hit .763 with the Spurs as a rookie last season and has been a strong foul shooter in his European career prior to coming to the NBA.
There have been occasional groundswells of support for addressing the situation at the rules level over the past two years with an important step apparently met last winter when commissioner Adam Silver voiced concern over fan displeasure. But the actions the NBA took over the summer won’t do much to cut back its use.
The previous rule that stated an intentional foul off the ball in the last two minutes of the fourth quarter would result in one shot and possession has been extended to the last two minutes of all four quarters. That’s the biggest tweak. But the most egregious use of the tactic came last season at Houston, when interim coach J.B. Bickerstaff began the second half with little-used K.J. McDaniels on the court and ordered him to foul Drummond five times in the first nine seconds of the third quarter. Nothing in the new rules bars that – or any number of other scenarios.
The NBA estimates its rules changes will eliminate 45 percent of instances of intentional fouling. Van Gundy was skeptical coming out of last season that the league would hand the Pistons a solution and Drummond attacked the summer as if no help was forthcoming.
Both want Drummond on the court to end games. Van Gundy has options – Baynes, Marjanovich, 6-foot-11 free agent power forward Jon Leuer – but knows nobody else brings the package of skills Drummond offers. Now they just need to see Drummond in training camp and preseason knocking down at least one of every two free throws he takes.