Another Potential Big Time Free Agent Looks To Already Be Off The Market

As time goes by the 2020 NBA free agent market is looking worse and worse. You look at guys already off the board from CJ McCollum, Jaylen Brown, Buddy Hield, Sabonis, Pascal Siakam, Bradley Beal, Dejounte Murray, Joe Ingles etc, a lot of the big names that were maybe going to hit the market are now no longer an option. You also can't really expect players like Gordon Hayward, DeMar DeRozan, Anthony Davis, Otto Porter Jr to decline their player option and hit the open market, they make too much money. 

That left a guy like Andre Drummond as someone who may very well decline his player option only to cash in with a down market on a team that might be closer to a contender. He's only 27, and he's playing some of the best basketball of his career at the moment

he's without a doubt the best big man that could have hit the market this summer, but it sounds like you can now cross his name off the list. There's no doubt that the Pistons will most likely max him out, and I know you can never trust someone who says they "plan on resigning" given what recent history has shown us, but with DET I think things are different with Drummond. It's the only team he's ever known, the Drummond/Blake frontcourt is legit as hell, and if you look at the market of teams that might have the most space (ATL, BKN, DAL, IND, LAC, LAL, PHI, SAC, UTA), not many of them are exactly looking for a max center. The teams that do need center help most likely won't be able to afford Drummond so staying in DET makes sense.

It's a bit of a downer that after the summer we just had that the 2020 offseason might be more of a dud in terms of elite talent switching teams, but just hold on a little longer because 2021 is going to be absolutely bananas. That's when the cream of the crop will have the opportunity to enter the market, and why teams are most likely going to be conservative this summer. For a team like the Pistons that isn't exactly a free agent destination, making sure you keep your high end talent is probably the way to go.