An Andre Drummond Deep Dive

What exactly are the Knicks getting with their new backup center? And will it be enough to fulfill their needs?

Good morning! With the free agent moratorium lifted, the Knicks made the signings of Landry Shamet, Jose Alvarado, Mohamed Diawara and Andre Drummond official yesterday. The big item of note, per Fred Katz, is that the last two years of Mo’s deal are non-guaranteed. Also, Keith Smith reported that the final two years of Landry Shamet’s contract are partially guaranteed, while Ian Begley reported that Shamet has a player option on the final year of his contract. I look forward to all of these players being Knicks for a very long time.

Andre Drummond: A Deep Dive

When you hear the name Andre Drummond in the year of our basketball lord (Jalen Brunson) 2026, what words come to mind?

My answer, when the prospect of him potentially replacing Mitchell Robinson was first floated, went something like this: Old. Slow. Plodding. Occasionally silly.

Did I mention old?

On that last part, the soon-to-be-33-year-old Drummond was actually the third oldest rotation center in the postseason behind Nikola Vučević and Rudy Gobert, but even that’s a little deceiving. Vučević lost his rotation spot by the end of the first round and subsequently signed with Orlando to be the Magic’s third center, while Gobert has played one fewer NBA season than Drummond even though he’s a year older.

For all intents and purposes, among teams who enter next season with real designs on winning the 2027 NBA Championship, Drummond is the OG big man of the lot.

But with age comes wisdom, or so Knicks PR would like you to believe after they doled out the same line about valuing his playoff experience after the signing.

Indeed, Drummond has been to the postseason five times in his career, but prior to this “run” with Philly, his teams had won just one (1) total playoff game in his four previous trips combined. If the Knicks were really pining for playoff experience, they’d have been better served holding out for Kevon Looney - a relative spring chicken at 30 - who has won two titles, played in three Finals, and appeared in nearly as many playoff series in the last 10 years as Drummond has playoff games.

So if playoff experience wasn’t the true deciding factor in this signing, what was? For that answer, we have to look at the history of the center position during the Leon Rose regime.

Since the start of the 2020-21 season, no team in the league has valued a single skill at a single position more than the Knicks have valued rebounding by their centers. I can make arguments about what they’ve valued more between offensive and defensive rebounding, but being able to crash the glass effectively has been a prerequisite for playing time among New York bigs for six years and counting.

The proof for this is overflowing. Last season, 25 centers who appeared in at least 50 games has an offensive rebounding rate above 10 percent. Three (Mitch, KAT and Huk) played for the Knicks. Towns also finished with a defensive rebound rate above 28 for the second consecutive season - a claim which only Domantas Sabonis can share. Before the KAT/Mitch pairing, Isaiah Hartenstein teamed with Robinson to form the best 1-2 rebounding punch in the NBA, with Jericho Sims more than holding his own as a third big. We’ve also seen Precious Achiuwa do high level work on the offensive glass, and before him, Taj Gibson.

Despite those accolades, these players join every other center throughout NBA history in looking up at one man when it comes to dominating the glass:

That’s right…if you go by overall rebound rate (which measures the percentage of rebounds a player grabs), Andre Drummond is the best to ever do it, just ahead of Dennis Rodman. The Worm has him by a hair in offensive rebound rate, but by the numbers, Drummond and Rodman are in a class by themselves since we started measuring these stats in 1970¹.

Better yet, those same numbers say there’s been little if any drop off in Drummond’s board work from the start of his career until now. Check out the sea of deep orange for both offensive and defensive rebounding rate on Cleaning the Glass:

Why is this so important to the Knicks?

On defense, while they haven’t always been perfect in their half court execution, they’ve consistently finished possessions better than any team in the league. On offense, for as much as they’ve grown by leaps and bounds stylistically, offensive rebounds are often still a deciding factor. Just look at the three game-deciding plays that won Game 1 (Bridges offensive board leading to the go ahead Brunson three), Game 4 (the OG tip in) and Game 5 (the Mitch board) of the NBA Finals.

So yes, for everything else Drummond may not do well (we’re getting there), he’s exceptional at the one thing New York needs him to be great at.

Is there more meat on the bone elsewhere though? For that, we have to go to the third thing noted in that Knicks PR missive: size.