Veteran big man Andre Drummond looking to add toughness to Bulls

It’s usually a red flag when a veteran bench player joins a new team and declares that he still feels like he’s a starter.

Make that a few red flags.

Andre Drummond, however, wasn’t about to start apologizing for his thought process, even now being on his sixth NBA team entering Year 11.

“I’m still in my mindset a player that’s a starter,” Drummond said in his first meeting with the Bulls media since signing a one-year deal with a player option. “But I’m a player who is able to adjust and adapt to any situation. If my services are needed to be a starter I can do that. If my services are needed to come in and be a spark off the bench that is what I’m here to do. My ego is not something that is driven in this game. I play the game because I love it and not to do anything else but be an asset this team.”

Well played.

But how exactly will he be an asset to this Bulls roster?

It starts with rebounding.

The Bulls ranked 28th in that category last season. Not necessarily an awful place to be considering Eastern Conference powerhouses like Miami (22nd) and Philadelphia (29th) were also in that zip code, but definitely an area that needed an upgrade.

Rebounding is not only a number, it’s a statement. It’s a message of physicality to the opposing team. A claim of the paint.

That might be more important for the Bulls than the actual rebound numbers.

While Billy Donovan’s crew led the Eastern Conference for weeks heading into the All-Star Break last season, there was a growing reputation of softness around the Bulls. Against talented teams that also played with some physical intensity, far too often that reputation played out.

That’s not Donovan’s personality, nor is it what he wants from his roster.

While Drummond isn’t in the business of stirring the pot, he also won’t walk away from a confrontation. See Miles Bridges and Dorian Finney-Smith.

The other department that Drummond will help out is rim protection. The Bulls were 25th in shot blocking.

The big man isn’t a specialist in swatting basketballs at the rim, but he is more than serviceable, averaging 1.5 blocks for his career.

What still needs to be answered, though, is how Donovan will use Drummond? He will back up Nikola Vucevic, but what needs to be seen is can Vucevic and Drummond co-exist and play together at the same time?

Donovan looked to do that last season with Vucevic and Tristan Thompson, and it was mostly an experiment gone wrong.

Drummond and Vucevic will get an opportunity to play alongside each other throughout training camp, and more importantly, in the four preseason games, to see how the group functions.

Vucevic is all in on trying to make that work.

“I’m open to trying anything to see how it works,” Vucevic said. “With my ability to shoot both inside and outside, my versatility on the court, I think it helps us to try it. It all depends on who we’re playing, the matchups. We won’t really know until we try. I’ve done it in my career where I’ve played the stretch-5. I won’t call it the stretch-4.”

Music to Drummond’s ears. The big man signed with the Bulls to get some playing time and win games. Starter, role player, rebounder, bodyguard, whatever that means, he’s up for it.

“This is a team that is very young, hungry and in a great position to do something special,” Drummond said. “I wanted to be a part of that.”

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