Andre Drummond Wants Draymond Green On His Team

Draymond Green is special. Like, really special.

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I mean first of all, Green is officially listed at 6-feet-7-inches, but Draft Express had listed Green at standing much closer to 6-feet-5-inches without shoes. What’s so amazing about that is despite his height disadvantage, he’s earned himself consideration for Defensive Player of the Year as a power forward this season, in addition to the possibility of a max contract come this summer.

Reminder to you: Green was drafted by the Golden State Warriors with just the 35th overall pick of the 2012 NBA Draft. Once seen as a role player with limited potential, Green has solidified himself as Golden State’s starting power forward and is credited as one of the main contributors behind the team’s historic season.

And now Golden State finds themselves as one of the favorites to win it all. It really makes for a great story, honestly. Cinema worthy.

Andre Drummond and his Detroit Pistons teammates haven’t been so lucky. They’ve had their moments in their first season under renowned coach Stan Van Gundy, but they are still in the process of establishing their core and building some long-term stability as a franchise.

Drummond is clearly the player that the Pistons organization is hoping to build around. Averaging roughly 14 points, 13 rebounds and two blocks, the 7-foot athletic big man has the potential to become one of the NBA’s most dominating forces in the paint. The Pistons also have some enticing young pieces like Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Reggie Jackson in the backcourt, as well as some great veterans like Tayshaun Prince and former Warriors forward, Anthony Tolliver, to provide some leadership.

“When you’re talking about a tough guy who can also shoot the ball, there’s your ideal.” – Stan Van Gundy on Draymond Green

Drummond’s frontcourt mate, however, may soon be on the way out. 24-year-old power forward Greg Monroe averaged an impressive 15.9 points, 10.2 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game this season, but some have questioned whether he truly is the right fit alongside Drummond in the frontcourt. An unrestricted free agent, Monroe is open to a change in scenery, most recently having been linked to the New York Knicks.

Drummond is undoubtedly aware that his team could use a power forward, especially one as defensive-minded as Green. Green, who was reportedly interested in pursuing an offer sheet with the Pistons over the offseason, is also undoubtedly aware of the situation in his home state of Michigan. Van Gundy, too, is aware, having once praised Green for his toughness prior to a Warriors-Pistons matchup.

Warriors owner Joe Lacob has gone on record that he’s willing to match any offer for Green — even if it means paying the luxury tax — a strategy commonly used to discourage teams from pursuing a restricted free agent. However, it became clear early Sunday morning that Drummond couldn’t care any less:

via @andredrummondd on Twitter

Everybody say it with me! Ready?

TAM-PER-ING.

Or is it? It’s really unclear whether this violates the NBA’s anti-tampering rules. In Drummond’s defense, the league’s rule against tampering is pretty darn vague, but that’s likely so that teams simply stray away from mentioning players under contract with other teams.

In case you’re unfamiliar with the NBA’s rules against tampering, Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) expert Larry Coon has one definition:

"“Tampering is when a player or team directly or indirectly entices, induces or persuades anybody (player, general manager, etc.) who is under contract with another team in order to negotiate for their services.”"

For those that desire a more explicit explanation, the NBA issued a memo on tampering a while back:

"“Article 35A of the NBA Constitution states that it’s a violation of the league’s anti-tampering rule for any person affiliated with an NBA team to directly or indirectly (i) entice, induce, or persuade, or attempt to entice, induce or persuade, any player, coach, GM or other person under contract to any other NBA team to enter into negotiations for or relating to that person’s services or to negotiate or contract for such services, or (ii) otherwise interfere with the employment relationship between that employee and the other NBA team.”"

Although former NBA commissioner David Stern went on record to say that the tampering rules generally don’t pertain to player-to-player contact, the wording in the aforementioned memo on tampering involve “any person affiliated with an NBA team.” The definition by Coon explicitly includes players as being subject to consequences if found in violation of the league’s anti-tampering rules.

So what exactly is tampering? Did Drummond violate the anti-tampering rules? The answer to that question is the same one that people give when asked whether there truly is a higher power: maybe, maybe not. We may never really know for sure.

But one of the more recent incidents regarding tampering involved LeBron James calling Kevin Love — who wanted out of his contract with the Minnesota Timberwolves — following the former’s decision to sign with the Cleveland Cavaliers. When Love chose to follow along and sign with the Cavs, Love had the following to say during the subsequent press conference:

"“LeBron had signed to come back with the Cleveland Cavaliers, and just a few hours post he called me and I said, ‘You know what? I’m in.’ That had a lot to do with my decision. I knew they had a lot of young pieces in place, a lot of great talent that has accumulated here as well, and I knew the city relatively well, but that had a lot to do with it.”"

Of course the argument was that no one really knew EXACTLY the words that were exchanged between Love and James, but the idea is that James was directly (or indirectly) enticing a player that had been under contract with another team to ultimately leave his current team to join Cleveland.

Neither James, Love or the Cavaliers faced any punishment for tampering, which is strange considering that Drake — the “global brand ambassador” for the Toronto Raptors — was fined $25,000 for simply starting a “KD” chant for Kevin Durant at his OVO Fest concert. It just seems pretty surprising that there was no in-depth investigation of what had gone on prior to Love signing with Cleveland (but then again, this is King James we’re talking about).

Like James’ call to Love, Drummond’s tweet walks that fine line between what’s tampering and what’s not. Drummond in fact included Green’s Twitter handle in his tweet, which would have consequently appeared as a message notification for Green — so technically speaking, Drummond communicated to Green that he wants him on the Pistons. Just a tiny bit fishy.

Drummond was sure to destroy the evidence later that day, deleting the tweet (just a tiny bit fishier). By that time, however, thousands of NBA fans had already caught wind of it and retweeted it onto their profiles. Some even took a screenshot of the tweet, anticipating that Drummond would delete it. Not even someone as big as Drummond can hide from Big Brother; in today’s computer age, there are no secrets.

But Drummond and Draymond? That’d be cute. Dre and Dray? Sounds like a match made in heaven. And coincidently, the Pistons’ $64.54 million payroll will be officially cut in half following the postseason, freeing them up to make some big moves come the offseason.

While it’s unlikely they’d pull him away from Lacob and company, they could offer Green a max offer sheet if they really really wanted to. Just to do it. I mean, why not? They ain’t got nothing to lose. Green would likely be an automatic fan favorite, and as Detroit-native Jalen Rose puts it, “Got to give the people what they want.”

All in all, seeing whether Green chooses to take less money to stick with a contender like Golden State or choose to sign a max offer sheet with Detroit will prove to be an extremely intriguing storyline.

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