Andre Drummond: Not focused on extension, but 'I'd love to be a Piston'

One of the best stretches of Andre Drummond's young career happened to coincide with the absence of his Detroit Pistons frontcourt mate Greg Monroe. 

In the 11 games Monroe missed, Drummond averaged 16.9 points and 14.8 rebounds, propelling the Pistons to a 7-4 record. That's something the Pistons will likely consider this summer, as Monroe hits free agency and Drummond becomes eligible to sign a contract extension. 

Monroe's a good player, with a chance to be a very good one, but the pairing of him and Drummond creates some redundancies and spacing issues on offense; it's been mostly disastrous on defense. 

Pistons head coach and president Stan Van Gundy has been adamant that Drummond will be the team's centerpiece moving forward, and the shocking decision to cut bait with Josh Smith, just over a year into his lucrative contract, spoke of a franchise willing to do everything necessary to complement its budding center with the right personnel. 

For all that, Drummond says he hasn't yet started thinking seriously about an extension.

"I'm not really focused on that," he told Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press. "It's in the back of my head, but I'm not really worried about it as of yet because there's so much time to really go into that.

"I think, for now, I'm just going to continue to play my game, work on my body and just continue to play hard. We got up until the 31st of October. I'd love to be a Piston and when I decide to really sit down and talk about that with my family and my agent when the time's right."

If the Pistons can't reach a deal with Drummond by that Oct. 31 deadline, he'll play out the last year of his rookie contract and then become a restricted free agent. Monroe did the same, ultimately signing a one-year qualifying offer as an RFA, and will now be an unrestricted free agent. 

The crucial difference is that the Pistons never offered Monroe a max contract, while they're all but certain to extend one to Drummond.

"Everybody's different," he said. "Some guys want to take it as early as possible because that's probably the best deal they're gonna get. Some guys like to wait it out because they want to see their options or just not ready to decide yet. I think for me when my group comes together and we decide what we want to do is when the best time is going to be."

With two games left in the season, Drummond is averaging 13.6 points, 13.5 rebounds and 1.8 blocks per game, and his league-leading offensive rebound rate (18.2 percent) ranks 11th all-time.