So let me get this straight, I say to Andre Drummond. You were just hanging out in Manhattan on Tuesday night?
“Yeah,” he says. “With my mom.”
Watching TV?
“Watching TV.”
And your agent calls?
“Yeah. And he said, ÃÂYou got a workout.’ And I said, ÃÂAll right, when?’ And he said, ÃÂAt 11.’ And I said, ÃÂOK, 11 in the morning.’ And he said, ÃÂNo, 11 tonight.'”
What time was it?
“It was 10:30.”
You had a half-hour?
“Yeah.”
What did you do?
“I said, ÃÂOh.’ And I jumped in some clothes really quick and put on some shoes and headed over there.”
How did you get there?
“I took a cab.”
Did you tell the driver he was taking you to an NBA workout?
“No. Otherwise he’d ask me questions and we’d never have gotten there.”
And thus did Andre Drummond set sail on his quick voyage to Pistonland. Here is the difference between 18-year-olds and the rest of us. The rest of us might be sleeping when a call like that came in. The rest of us might grumble into the phone, “Get back to me during business hours.”
An 18-year-old says, “Workout? In a gym? At 11 p.m.? Cool.”
And Drummond wound up the Pistons’ first-round pick in Thursday night’s draft, at least partially due to his good showing in the impromptu workout at the Sports Club/LA on the upper east side of Manhattan, which was hastily arranged by Joe Dumars, who flew in from Detroit just to take a closer look.
It’s a good thing Drummond wasn’t at the movies.
Great last-minute moves
What did the gym look like at 11 at night, I ask?
“Believe it or not, there were a couple guys playing pickup. They made them clear the court until I was done.”
Where did they go?
“They watched me for a while.”
And you worked out for Dumars?
“Yeah.”
What did you do?
“He wanted to see how I moved, how quick I was on my feet, bunch of different things I did. It seemed like he was really impressed. I just had the feeling I was going to end up being a Piston.”
And when it was over?
“I took a shower and went back home.”
To Mom?
“Yeah.”
Two nights later, his hunch came true.
This should surprise nobody, by the way, at least when it comes to Drummond. He appears to be a kid who makes major decisions in a heartbeat. If his on-court pivot is as good as his real-life adjustments, no one will be able to stop him.
Consider that last year at this time, Drummond, from Middletown, Conn., was planning to attend an extra year of prep school. He was young to have graduated high school, only 17, and the thinking was an extra year of maturity would help his game and his personal growth.
Then, in August, he changed his mind. In August? He called Jim Calhoun, the coach of the Connecticut Huskies, who at the time were the defending national champions.
“He thought it was a joke,” Drummond recalls. “I left him a message. I said it was urgent. He called me back. I told him I want to come to University of Connecticut. He laughed. I said, ÃÂI’m not joking. I’m being serious.’ He flipped out. He started yelling, going crazy. And then it was like, ÃÂWell, we don’t have any scholarships right now.'”
Somehow it worked out. Never mind how UConn managed to admit him so late (parents everywhere are rolling their eyes thinking about the harsh deadlines imposed on normal incoming freshmen). Drummond wound up on the team, and rather than take another kid’s scholarship, ended up using financial aid and playing as a walk-on.
A walk-on?
Yep. In fact, he decided so late to attend – three days before school started – that there wasn’t even a dorm room available.
“Actually,” he says, “I was living on my teammates’ couch for the first three weeks.”
Sure. Why not?
Baby parade for hoops
With this kind of history, adjusting to the NBA should be just another flip step for Drummond, the ninth overall pick and who stands 6-feet-11 and weighs, he says, 275 pounds. True, he has been criticized for a lack of continuous effort, and true, he averaged just 10 points a game in his single year in college, and true, he had a total of 15 assists and made less than a third of his free throws at UConn, and true, he’ll have to strengthen that lanky body to go against the big centers in the league.
On the other hand, there’s that 18-year-old thing.
“I feel I adjust to things really quick,” he says. “Whatever situation I’m put in, I find a way to make the best of it.”
Like it or not, this is the sports world today. Younger and younger. Sooner and sooner. Did you watch the NBA draft Thursday night? It looked like a suit-and-tie fashion show for very tall middle-schoolers.
But that’s the present – and the future. These kids are not really players yet, they’re specimens. Even Dumars, the Pistons’ president of basketball operations, used that word in describing Drummond. You are betting on their upside, hoping that your crystal ball is in focus.
It’s a risk. It’s a gamble. It’s a decision you make by film, interviews, workouts, prayer – and last-minute New York City workouts.
On the other hand, if the Pistons ever want to schedule an impromptu midnight practice, they know at least one guy who’ll be up for it.
Contact Mitch Albom: 313-223-4581 or malbom@freepress.com. Catch “The Mitch Albom Show” 5-7 p.m. weekdays on WJR-AM (760). Also catch “Monday Sports Albom” 7-8 p.m. Mondays on WJR. To read his recent columns, go to www.freep.com/mitch.
So let me get this straight, I say to Andre Drummond. You were just hanging out in Manhattan on Tuesday night?
“Yeah,” he says. “With my mom.”
Watching TV?
“Watching TV.”
And your agent calls?
“Yeah. And he said, ÃÂYou got a workout.’ And I said, ÃÂAll right, when?’ And he said, ÃÂAt 11.’ And I said, ÃÂOK, 11 in the morning.’ And he said, ÃÂNo, 11 tonight.'”
What time was it?
“It was 10:30.”
You had a half-hour?
“Yeah.”
What did you do?
“I said, ÃÂOh.’ And I jumped in some clothes really quick and put on some shoes and headed over there.”
How did you get there?
“I took a cab.”
Did you tell the driver he was taking you to an NBA workout?
“No. Otherwise he’d ask me questions and we’d never have gotten there.”
And thus did Andre Drummond set sail on his quick voyage to Pistonland. Here is the difference between 18-year-olds and the rest of us. The rest of us might be sleeping when a call like that came in. The rest of us might grumble into the phone, “Get back to me during business hours.”
An 18-year-old says, “Workout? In a gym? At 11 p.m.? Cool.”
And Drummond wound up the Pistons’ first-round pick in Thursday night’s draft, at least partially due to his good showing in the impromptu workout at the Sports Club/LA on the upper east side of Manhattan, which was hastily arranged by Joe Dumars, who flew in from Detroit just to take a closer look.
It’s a good thing Drummond wasn’t at the movies.
Great last-minute moves
What did the gym look like at 11 at night, I ask?
“Believe it or not, there were a couple guys playing pickup. They made them clear the court until I was done.”
Where did they go?
“They watched me for a while.”
And you worked out for Dumars?
“Yeah.”
What did you do?
“He wanted to see how I moved, how quick I was on my feet, bunch of different things I did. It seemed like he was really impressed. I just had the feeling I was going to end up being a Piston.”
And when it was over?
“I took a shower and went back home.”
To Mom?
“Yeah.”
Two nights later, his hunch came true.
This should surprise nobody, by the way, at least when it comes to Drummond. He appears to be a kid who makes major decisions in a heartbeat. If his on-court pivot is as good as his real-life adjustments, no one will be able to stop him.
Consider that last year at this time, Drummond, from Middletown, Conn., was planning to attend an extra year of prep school. He was young to have graduated high school, only 17, and the thinking was an extra year of maturity would help his game and his personal growth.
Then, in August, he changed his mind. In August? He called Jim Calhoun, the coach of the Connecticut Huskies, who at the time were the defending national champions.
“He thought it was a joke,” Drummond recalls. “I left him a message. I said it was urgent. He called me back. I told him I want to come to University of Connecticut. He laughed. I said, ÃÂI’m not joking. I’m being serious.’ He flipped out. He started yelling, going crazy. And then it was like, ÃÂWell, we don’t have any scholarships right now.'”
Somehow it worked out. Never mind how UConn managed to admit him so late (parents everywhere are rolling their eyes thinking about the harsh deadlines imposed on normal incoming freshmen). Drummond wound up on the team, and rather than take another kid’s scholarship, ended up using financial aid and playing as a walk-on.
A walk-on?
Yep. In fact, he decided so late to attend – three days before school started – that there wasn’t even a dorm room available.
“Actually,” he says, “I was living on my teammates’ couch for the first three weeks.”
Sure. Why not?
Baby parade for hoops
With this kind of history, adjusting to the NBA should be just another flip step for Drummond, the ninth overall pick and who stands 6-feet-11 and weighs, he says, 275 pounds. True, he has been criticized for a lack of continuous effort, and true, he averaged just 10 points a game in his single year in college, and true, he had a total of 15 assists and made less than a third of his free throws at UConn, and true, he’ll have to strengthen that lanky body to go against the big centers in the league.
On the other hand, there’s that 18-year-old thing.
“I feel I adjust to things really quick,” he says. “Whatever situation I’m put in, I find a way to make the best of it.”
Like it or not, this is the sports world today. Younger and younger. Sooner and sooner. Did you watch the NBA draft Thursday night? It looked like a suit-and-tie fashion show for very tall middle-schoolers.
But that’s the present – and the future. These kids are not really players yet, they’re specimens. Even Dumars, the Pistons’ president of basketball operations, used that word in describing Drummond. You are betting on their upside, hoping that your crystal ball is in focus.
It’s a risk. It’s a gamble. It’s a decision you make by film, interviews, workouts, prayer – and last-minute New York City workouts.
On the other hand, if the Pistons ever want to schedule an impromptu midnight practice, they know at least one guy who’ll be up for it.
Contact Mitch Albom: 313-223-4581 or malbom@freepress.com. Catch “The Mitch Albom Show” 5-7 p.m. weekdays on WJR-AM (760). Also catch “Monday Sports Albom” 7-8 p.m. Mondays on WJR. To read his recent columns, go to www.freep.com/mitch.
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