Featured Matchup: Magic’s Nikola Vucevic vs. Andre Drummond

Tuesday, Dec. 30 vs. Detroit Pistons

Vitals:  Detroit is 7-23 (.233), 4-10 on the road, 4-11 vs. East, negative-5.2 point differential

Simply put, Detroit is woeful and spiraling toward the NBA abyss faster than the speed of sound. Maybe that is not simply put at all, but the Pistons cutting ties with a player on a max-contract does not look good.

Yes, Josh Smith was a mistake, but is there any worse way to air that dirty laundry than by waiving him? Smith probably could not care less since he is now on a quasi-contending Houston Rockets team. But he will indubitably make the team worse.

The Pistons may have just added via subtraction, as the dictum goes.

Shot-jacking “point guard” Brandon Jennings never progressed as a player. He may have even regressed since his rookie season in Milwaukee.

Greg Monroe is not locked up past this offseason, and he is the best player thus far for Detroit. The Pistons really have nothing all that beneficial going for the franchise in terms of talent. It is expected former Magic coach Stan Van Gundy will leave his imprint on the franchise, but it hasn’t happened yet, obviously.

The Pistons are coming off a bizarre victory over a much tougher Cleveland Cavaliers team Sunday (Dec 28), a game in which Jennings put up 25 points on an efficient 10-of-18 shooting (He shoots 38 percent on the year), while Andre Drummond did his typical thing on the boards, ripping down 17 to go with 16 points on 8-of-12 shooting. He also protected the rim, blocking five shots.

Detroit forced 17 Cavs turnovers, seven of which came from LeBron James, whose shot was about as hot as the Arctic tundra, knocking down 5-of-19 in 32 minutes before bowing out in a game which saw the lethargic Cavs enter the fourth quarter down by 16 points.

Dec 27, 2013; Orlando, FL, USA; Orlando Magic center

Nikola Vucevic

(9) drives to the basket as Detroit Pistons center

Andre Drummond

(0) defends during the first quarter at Amway Center. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

Key Matchup, Center: Andre Drummond v. Nikola Vucevic

Andre Drummond is most exciting and promising talent on the team, and he is really the only Piston other than Monroe with any significant trade value. But he is not going anywhere. Drummond has posted 12.7 points, 12.5 rebounds and 2.83 blocks/steals per contest this season.

His body is reminiscent of Dwight Howard, yet the Magic have no such player to counter his massive frame. While Nikola Vucevic is improving as a defender and is a better scorer than Drummond, the Pistons young center finds a lot of ways to impact a game.

Drummond’s Achilles’ heel is his pitiful free throw shooting (49.2 percent).

It should be a spectacle to watch Vucevic and Drummond tangle it up under the glass.

Drummond ranks No. 2 in the league in rebounding while Vucevic averages just 0.7 rebounds less and ranks No. 4. Neither are likely to climb past leading rebounder DeAndre Jordan, but a lot of pride will go unspoken over the battle of the boards in this game.

This game is not going to be the big ticket game of Tuesday night for anyone cruising League Pass. There is also the distinct possibility that Orlando falls flat on its collective faces in light of the fact that this is the second of a back-to-back, and the fourth game in five nights, following a 102-101 victory over the Miami Heat Monday (Dec 29) night.

Nikola Vucevic saw 34 minutes in the game, scoring 26 points, grabbing nine boards and dropping three dimes.

Vuc’s game is a bit more developed than Drummond’s approach of raw power, but the different styles will showcase the various ways in which big men can influence a game offensively.

It’s hard to imagine Detroit steals this one. Sunday’s game against Cleveland could be the start of a great thing in Detroit, but it doesn’t seem to prudent to go laying down NBA championship bets on Vegas websites quite yet.  Let’s just let this one play out before we start laughing at Stan Van Gundy’s new club.

Sidenote:  If the Amway doesn’t salute and applaud SVG in pre-game introduction, there is another glitch in this NBA matrix.