Young Hoopers need to hear Andre Drummond’s cautionary tale
Andre Drummond says he went from millions to league minimum Photo: Matt Slocum (AP)
In today’s sports media landscape, it’s rare to find an active player who keeps it 100 percent real. Even when they were telling the truth, it felt like they were holding back a bit. However, Andre Drummond keeps it more real than he has recently been while talking to a group of young hoopers. He talks about basketball and the importance of being a good teammate and not making things up to yourself. He admits that he is a person who frowns when things don’t go his way.
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“I will tell you something. Drummond continues… Guys, I am that person. I am a 100 million dollar man. I pout, I get annoyed when I don’t play. And I have a bad attitude. I went from 100 million dollars to a league minimum (expletive). This is a personal story that I share with you guys now. … They don’t care how many rebounds you get, how many 3’s you make. They care about you as a person, are you a good teammate, are you a good person in the locker room? Are you someone they can count on every night? I’m talking about consistency…”
This is a message every youth footballer across the country needs to hear from the age of 12 and up. Drummond imparts knowledge of the children present. It’s not always about you, and if you can’t be happy for your teammates when they succeed, it’s going to come back to haunt you. Having a boo-boo face on the touchline because the coach kicked you out doesn’t help the team. That’s the message Drummond is trying to convey to these young athletes.
Even if none of these kids make it to the NBA, that nugget of wisdom will serve them for life if they choose to listen. Just a few years ago Drummond was one of the game’s coveted big men, and now you rarely hear his name in the NBA news cycle. Some of the young people who have played for Golden State in recent years might also want to read Drummond’s message. One was recently trafficked away from the bay area, and the other is allegedly looking to get out.
Of course, there will always be those who want to go against the system or choose not to listen when OG tells them what could happen if they went down a certain path. That’s really who this type of message is for: those who don’t want to act right. Those who want to do what they want to do end up learning the hard way. Drummond told us exactly what he did and now realizes he could have handled things differently.
The four-time rebounding champion and two-time All-Star now plays for the Chicago Bulls on the league-minimum contract he named. He’s still in the NBA and getting checks, but once you reach that $100 million threshold, anything less than that is like a rush backwards.
