Watching last night’s game reaffirmed my belief that this team would benefit from a guy like Drummond. I get all the stuff about him not being a modern big, but there are certain fundamental aspects of basketball that never go out of style (e.g. rebounding). He had one less rebound last night than Cody, Biz, PJ and Miles combined. Even if we were capable of playing defense at a semi-adequate level, it would be negated by the fact that we repeatedly get obliterated on the boards. Having a big who could catch, finish strong around the basket and swallow up boards at an elite level would completely change the complexion of this team. I’m sure this isn’t a popular opinion, but I think he should be a FA target this off-season. Given that he wouldn’t appear to be in high demand, he should be attainable at relatively low cost.
Continuing that theme, it’s frustrating that we did nothing during the off-season to address the deficiency at C beyond drafting two project bigs. I love Biz, but I don’t get the decision to run it back with him versus, say, signing Whiteside. While Whiteside has his flaws for sure, such a move would’ve addressed two glaring areas of weakness (rebounding and rim protection) and we could’ve gotten him on a minimum deal. With Cody hurt (again) we are about to pay dearly for our failure to ensure adequate/quality depth in the post.