If JaVale McGee gets a hard time for this:
Andre Drummond deserves a little chastising for this.
(hat tip: commenter ProBasketballPundit for the video)
Amar’e Stoudemire squares up shoots a jumper with 9:58 left in the second quarter of Tuesday’s Pistons-Knicks game.
Drummond runs out to contest it.
Then, Drummond backs away as the shot is en route.
And as the rebound bounces right back to Stoudemire, Drummond turns around and runs back on offense (far right of frame).
Drummond doesn’t re-enter the picture (far right of frame) for four seconds – an eternity in real time. In that span, Stoudemire passed to Beno Udrih, who held the ball a while before shooting, seemingly scanning the court to figure out why he was so open.
Maybe the risk/reward of leaving his team to defend 4-on-5 vs. getting an open dunk justifies Drummond turning his back on a rebound coming right to him. But when it backfires, he looks pretty ridiculous.