Five Soon-to-Be NBA All-Stars:
http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/98506950
Bledsoe, Parsons, Leonard, Faried and...
Andre Drummond, Detroit
It's completely understandable why Andre Drummond didn't play any meaningful minutes during the FIBA World Cup, but that didn't make not getting to watch him play feel any less like slow torture. The worst tease. Drummond could very well be on his way to becoming the most physically dominant player since 2011 Dwight Howard. He owns certain areas of the court. (So much so that it feels like offensive rebounds will eventually be re-named after him.)
Drummond runs on diesel. All 7-feetand 280 pounds of him. There's almost no sequence in the game more predictably gripping than the moment after he sets a screen and dives to the rim. Everyone in the building knows what's coming, including Drummond's man, the opposing wing who's rushing in to impede progress from the weak side and the guy 16 beers deep eating a hotdog in the upper deck. Everyone knows what's coming and nobody can stop it. It's unstoppable. The lob gets tossed, probably a few inches below the very top of the backboard, and Drummond goes up to get it, like a dog who's convinced catching that drifting frisbee is his life's work.
Drummond fouls a
lot, and fouls aren't cool because they slow the game down and make it less -- you guessed it -- entertaining. But all in all that's a small price to pay for budding transcendental talent. If the nifty post-game he's flashed in the preseason turns out to be anything more than a mirage, just … wow. He's the biggest and strongest guy around -- NBA entertainment in its most natural state.