Preseason basketball serves a few purposes, but if you’re a veteran who doesn’t have to worry about losing their spot in a team’s rotation, the main role of the preseason is to get the rust off that may have formed over the offseason. But really outside of that, you don’t need to work insanely hard to earn minutes or anything like that.
For proof of this, we go to Tuesday night’s game between the Detroit Pistons and the Toronto Raptors. At one point, Raptors big man Jonas Valanciunas grabbed a rebound beyond the three point line. Because Valanciunas is established as Toronto’s center, he decided it would be good to fire from downtown.
Andre Drummond, another guy whose job is not in jeopardy or anything, apparently knew that Valanciunas is 1-for-4 on threes in his career and reacted perfectly.
Andre Drummond… Nahhhhh 😂😂😂 https://t.co/uFx8aa3RNm
— Dime (@DimeUPROXX) October 11, 2017
All the respect in the world to Drummond for getting the point across as bluntly as possible. He knew that Valanciunas was probably not knocking this shot down, so he just went “nah” and let him shoot it.
And the best part is this worked! Drummond didn’t have to grab the rebound, but if the ball bounced his way, he was going to go right up and get the ball without any concerns. This isn’t a terrible strategy in the event a bad three-point shooter is lining up behind the arc, so hopefully we see this out of Drummond a few more times this season.
