The New York Knicks Play Moneyball With Andre Drummond Signing
- Dominic Konareski
- 31 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Andre Drummond was the best Mitchell Robinson replacement available and the New York Knicks sinked the shot.
Nothing but net.
Losing Mitch was a massive loss for the Knicks, while being a massive gain for the Boston Celtics. Robinson becomes a New York rival via a three-year, $47.4M deal that includes a player option for the third season.
Meanwhile, the Knicks counter and cut their loss by getting the big man veteran that Andre Drummond is. The former UConn baller was drafted in 2012 and has appeared in 967 games throughout his 14-year career in the NBA. Drummond comes to the Knicks on the cheapest deal for New York, who signed the 32-year-old on a veteran minimum $3.9M contract for one-year.
Overall, Andre Drummond isn’t the biggest stranger to the bright New York city lights. Drummond was a brief member of the 2021/22 Brooklyn Nets for 24 games – all of which he started. Since leaving Brooklyn, Drummond has mainly seen reduced roles and has solidified himself as a sixth-man bench role player. Appearing in 249 games since the beginning of 2023, Drummond has only started in 58.
In the same 249 game span, Drummond has averaged 16.8 minutes, 7.1 points, 8.0 total rebounds and just under a block per-game.
During this past season, Drummond started 25 games for the 76ers and appeared in 63 total games. The 6-foot-11 center notched his highest three-point percentage since 2015/16 at .356%, in what was part of a .472 FG% season.
Despite being signed on the vet’ league minimum, Andre Drummond is coming off of a season very similar to Mitchell Robinson.
Drummond had 6.4 PPG, 8.4 TRB, 1.3 AST, 0.6 BLK in 19.5 MPG throughout 63 games (25 starts). Robinson had 5.7 PPG, 8.8 TRB, 0.9 AST, 1.2 BLK in 19.6 MPG throughout 60 games (16 starts).
A very deep discussion could even come about on how Drummond coming with Robinson leaving the Knicks is better than if New York kept their former 2018 draftee. Andre Drummond comes into MSG giving a more consistent second-option behind Karl-Anthony Towns, while producing nearly the same (if not better) than Mitchell Robinson in stats, all for $43.5 million less.
Now that's Moneyball.
For those who don't know, Moneyball is the strategy of building a successful team by finding undervalued players and acquiring them for substantially less. Analytics is used heavily to identify players whose value is greater than what the overall market believes and can be used in a trade or signing.
By doing this a team (in this case the New York Knicks) are able to build up their team with the same value players without using a higher value of money.
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