- The San Antonio Spurs have secured the top spot in SheridanHoops’ Mark Heisler’s Week 14 Power rankings and he also takes a look back at the recent history of the Phoenix Suns: Their heyday really ended in 2008, when coach Mike D’Antoni left, to be succeeded – for 41 games, anyway – by Terry Porter, fired over the All-Star break in an exciting development for the whole league since the Suns were the host team. Not that they were dead Suns walking, but by the start of this season, the franchise had lost the entire 2004-05 rotation (Steve Nash, Amar’e Stoudemire, Joe Johnson, Shawn Marion, Quentin Richardson, Leandro Barbosa), top management (owner Jerry Colangelo, GM Bryan Colangelo and D’Antoni, who took over as GM), and many more who came and went (Shaquille O’Neal, Grant Hill, Jason Richardson, Vince Carter, Boris Diaw, Matt Barnes, Raja Bell, Mickael Pietrus, Earl Clark).
- Andre Drummond is going to be a beast in this league. On Tuesday night the 19-year-old rookie Center posted an absurd 18 points and 18 rebounds off the bench for the Detroit Pistons, becoming the youngest player in NBA history to do so.
The scary part is that star level of production came in just under 28 minutes. Drummond’s 18 points came on an efficient 9-for-15 shooting while adding two steals and a blocked shot to fill out the stat sheet. Drummond reached double-double status in less than 12 minutes of playing time. The last player since the mid-80’s to unleash these kinds of superhuman numbers? Dwight Howard.
Despite Drummond’s outburst, the Pistons fell to the Milwaukee Bucks 117-90, the largest margin for a win at Detroit in team history. But that’s not what’s important here. Detroit is a team on the rise with a nice core of young talent, but it’s still too early to talk playoffs. The story here is the rapid metamorphosis of Drummond, who was thought to be too raw, undeveloped and immature to risk a high draft pick on. (Cut to Cavs, Kings and Raptors fans sighing)
Drummond is promptly disproving those theories.
“It doesn’t matter what I had tonight,” Drummond said to The Detroit News after the game. “We lost the game.
“I think we took our foot off the gas and let them get what they wanted. “They took a lot of 3s and made them because we let them get comfortable.”
Does that sound like a raw, undeveloped and immature kid? Actually, Drummond sounds wise beyond his years, and poised to reach levels in this league only the most extreme optimist would have predicted. According to Basketball-Reference.com, no power forward or center to play at least 20 minutes per game under the age of 20 has a higher PER than Drummond (23.93) in NBA history.
The only others on the list: Shaquille O’Neal (22.90), Andrew Bynum (22.6), Chris Webber (21.7) and interestingly enough, Anthony Davis is in the building at 20.9, but that’s a story for another day. So it’s safe to say that Drummond’s outstanding play – while a small sample size – has warranted some lofty expectations.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8gFGJt9gtA]
You’ll notice Detroit’s iconic play-by-play announcer, George Blaha, exclaim that, just two minutes into the second quarter, “Drummond is taking over!” That emphatic dunk gave Drummond 10 points and eight rebounds in his first eight minutes, numbers that only the top bench players in this league are capable of. As a rookie, Drummond has been able to bring an energy and physicality off the bench that you would expect out of a five-year veteran. The kid is just 19.