Andre Drummond's Terrible Passing Is the Most Breathtaking Thing About These Sixers

Andre Drummond is the wildest passer I've ever witnessed play at any level of adult human basketball.

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It's hard to know what's worth talking about with this Sixers team right now. Their lineup has shuffled nightly the past two weeks, and with it, their narrative: They're a never-say-die group of overachieving hardasses; they're an overtaxed group of roleplayers; they just need Embiid back; they just need Embiid right; they have great playmaking but can't make shots, they have great shooting but no one to create; they're just one player away; they're just two players away; they're just an entire starting lineup away. The results have vacillated with the chapter, and it's hard to measure a scrapped-out win against Sacramento against a blowout first half turned into a blown-out second half in Golden State against a gassy, assy escape job against Orlando. This team needs to get their story straight before we can evaluate it or them in any meaningful way.

So instead, let's talk about something that doesn't matter at all: Andre Drummond's passing.

Andre Drummond will not be a rotation player on the next Sixers team that really matters. Maybe that team is this year's, but if Drummond's still around in May getting 15 minutes a night as the regular season turns into the postseason, that'll be a pretty sure sign that it isn't. This was true the minute we signed him, and even though he's had stretches of being more skilled, more exciting, more capable than expected, it remains true as ever today. (This is where I'm again obligated to relate FOTB Jason Lipshutz's fantasy of Drummond being ceremonially waived as soon as the Sixers' final regular-season game ends, waving a dramatic goodbye to an uproarious Center crowd as Phoebe Bridgers' "I Know the End" plays in the background as if it was "Here Come the Sixers.")

The reasons why Drummond cannot be an important part of a Sixers team with legitimate championship aspirations are many. He's overmatched against quick, skilled guards in space. He has no second jump, and is frequently out-athleticed for rebounds. He's a liability at the free-throw line. He has a reverse-polarity touch around the rim. He cannot shoot, and cannot really play alongside anyone else who cannot shoot. He is at risk every time he takes the court of deciding a quarter way through that he'd rather be golfing, or I dunno, learning about baking on TikTok. Trusting the steadiness of his play in a game that matters is like driving over an icy bridge when you already have one tire out -- I mean, you might get by, but why on earth would you even attempt it if you had absolutely any other option available? And if you recognize that and still try it... well, you probably weren't that serious about making it to the other side in the first place.

So it doesn't really matter that in addition to all of this, Andre Drummond is the wildest passer I've ever witnessed play at any level of adult human basketball. But it's still the most stunning part of watching the Sixers on a regular basis -- nothing else, from Tyrese Maxey's transported-man drives to Matisse Thybulle's mid-air counter-strike blocks, can possibly compare -- so it's worth taking a beat to properly acknowledge and appreciate it.

I don't think I've ever rooted for a player who was a heat-check passer before Drummond. The same way Furkan Korkmaz only needs to hit two jumpers in a row (if that) to think he's playing in NBA Jam, Drummond makes one good pass in a game and all of a sudden he's Bill Walton with bifocals. And to his credit, those passes really have been there on occasion this season: look-ahead heaves to streakers in transition, bounce-pass feeds to cutters from the top of the key, bullet kickouts to shooters stationed behind the arc. He makes them, and you think to yourself, "Wow, I didn't know that passing was supposed to be part of Andre Drummond's game? How come no one's ever noticed how good he is at this?”

Then, of course, you realize why: For every bag he swipes as a passer, he gets picked off halfway between first and second two or three times. And they're hardly ever good passes with good intentions and just a slightly miscalculated velocity or launch angle; they're some of the most stupefying passes you've ever seen a player attempt, in any sport. Even when they end up connecting -- like a backwards over-the-head late-clock dish off a layup drive to Danny Green relatively open in the corner last night, which Danny appeared to still be trying to process the logic of as he passed up the three and dribbled to nowhere -- they still get you screaming at the TV in the "WHAT ARE THOOOOSE???" voice.

And when they don't connect... yeesh. There was a stretch in the fourth quarter against the Magic Monday night where Orlando's best offense was to let the Sixers take a missable shot, hope Drummond grabbed the offensive board, and then prepared to run the other way with it when he inevitably coughed possession up with a knuckleball pass back out. One such dish attempt last night -- a bounce pass that evidently hoped to hit Tobias Harris in stride on his way back to the rim, totally ignoring the fact that two defenders stood in the way and that Tobi had no hope of getting there in time to catch it anyway -- had my head spinning like an old slot machine with the lever stuck down. It was so impossibly out there that for a moment, I even had a brief crisis of no, it's the teammates who are wrong questioning, like maybe No. 1's passing was just too galaxy-brained for the rest of the team to get on his level.

Now, we as Sixers fans shouldn't act totally unfamiliar with such cranium-on-fire playmaking: After all, we've had nearly a year and a quarter of Dannys of the Night to help us embrace the truly inexplicable as a nightly part of the team experience. But while Danny Green makes plays that are unquestionable head-scratchers, they never seem to be his passion. Drummond, on the other hand, seems to love fancypassing in the "You miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take" sense -- like he's primarily on the court to attempt these MacGuyver dimes, with the finesse and precision of Shaq trying to shotput a ping-pong ball. Sometimes he makes them more difficult than they have to be, apparently just for the extra challenge. Sometimes it seems like the only part of the game he actually enjoys. With Danny, the on-court synapse jumbles are a necessary evil, with Andre, they seem to basically be his raison d'être.

I don't even get mad at him for it. I would get furious at Dwight, I would cry bloody murder at Horf, I'm still not legally allowed to be in the same zip code as Mike Muscala. But Drummond is just out there on the floor eating whole candles, and I can't help but be a little impressed with him for it. There has never existed a big-man passer as good as Andre Drummond seems to think he is, and I have to both respect the confidence and ambition, and cackle at how many parsecs away it exists from reality. Part of me probably wishes I could see the world the way he sees the court, tbh.

So yeah, I'm gonna just enjoy Andre Drummond's passing while it lasts, particularly while it feels a lot realer and more sustainable than anything else going on with the team. And if anyone has a good video montage of 'em handy, please send it to both me and to Phoebe Bridgers -- maybe we can talk her into appearing live at the Center for the closing of Game 82.