Detroit Pistons center Andre Drummond hasn’t had the best follow-up season to his breakout campaign of 2015-16. With the Pistons are mired in the lower half of the Eastern Conference playoff bracket in a season where they were expected to rise higher, Drummond’s name began making the trade-rumor rounds in the past few days. Drummond, for his part, is ignoring the chatter as best he can, writes Rod Beard of The Detroit News.
“It’s just the way NBA is; it’s all a business. Everybody’s name gets thrown around when you’re a high-profile guy,” Drummond said Tuesday evening. “My name happened to be in there. I’m not mad or anything like that. I’m still here to play basketball and whatever happens, happens. I can’t control that.”
In recent weeks, Pistons president/coach Stan Van Gundy has said in theory that any player on the roster is available for the right trade package in return, and didn’t back down on acknowledging Drummond’s name has popped up in talks recently.
“There hasn’t been a serious discussion about Andre, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been discussions about Andre,” Van Gundy said. “The concern would be from Andre’s standpoint, if nobody had any interest in him, if I were him, I’d be concerned.”
“It won’t be the last (time),” Van Gundy said. “This is the NBA; this stuff happens and it happens all the time. It happens every year and then what usually happens is when your name is not out there — that’s when you get traded.”
