Detroit Pistons: Who is the team’s best player?

Intangibles

The biggest area of concern with Griffin is his ability (or inability) to stay healthy.

Knee and ankle injures limited him to 58 games last season between the Los Angeles Clippers and Pistons. The year before that, knee surgery interrupted Griffin’s regular season and a toe injury ended his postseason early. In 2015-16, he only played 35 games due to a quad injury and a broken hand he sustained when he punched a team employee. Griffin also missed all of what would’ve been his rookie season in 2009-10 following microfracture knee surgery.

Drummond is undeniably durable. In four of his last five pro seasons, he has played at least 80 games.

Although Griffin and Drummond have been considered top players on their respective teams for years, neither is really lauded — at least not by fans and media — as a locker room leader. Griffin had Chris Paul running the show in L.A. for the majority of his time there.

Drummond has been in Detroit for six years, but he arrived as a teenager and is still just 25 years old. While he is by all accounts a good teammate, he’s not necessarily a vocal leader. During the Stan Van Gundy era (2014-18), it seemed the Pistons were always looking for on-court leadership — which explains why Van Gundy traded for Jameer Nelson last season, who was a leader when Van Gundy coached the Orlando Magic years ago.

At the team’s Media Day prior to last season, Van Gundy was quoted by Piston Powered regarding the leadership situation:

"“Just like all of us, you have to decide who to follow. They’re going to have to be around each other for a while before they decide who to follow. I’m going to encourage them all to take some leadership and it’s going to be a collective thing and we’ll see what comes of that. I do think as time goes on there will be two, three, four guys emerge and we’ll certainly encourage that.”"

Notice that Drummond, clearly the team’s top player, was not mentioned. You wouldn’t see that coming from the coach of the Boston Celtics, Portland Trail Blazers or Washington Wizards, who have clear leaders, albeit young ones.

Griffin has more playoff experience than Drummond. The Pistons have been to the postseason once in Drummond’s career, in 2016, and they were swept out of the first round. In four career playoff games, Drummond has averaged 16.8 points, 9.0 rebounds and 1.5 blocks per game. Griffin has played in 51 playoff games, averaging 21.0 points and 8.5 rebounds. With the Clippers, he advanced to the second round three times. He’s played in four Game 7s in the playoffs.

Off the court, Griffin is the more popular figure, although Drummond is working hard at becoming a mainstream celebrity.

Griffin enjoyed all the gifts (and curses) of playing in L.A., including the national advertising campaigns and Hollywood associations that allow an athlete to become famous beyond sports. Drummond hasn’t had that being in Detroit, but he is using social media and his budding music career effectively to put himself on the mainstream radar. Griffin, however, is still more well-known to the casual sports fan and non-fan.

That may seem irrelevant to a discussion about which player is better, but public perception helps shape athletic narratives. If Griffin is more popular than Drummond, that means Griffin will be the first Piston that reporters flock to post-game to essentially be the team’s spokesperson; Griffin will have the most prominent presence in Little Caesars Arena’s promotional material; Griffin will be the name used to sell Detroit’s handful of national TV games this season; Griffin will be the one getting “MVP” chants from the home crowd if he’s on a hot streak.

Those things can impact how Griffin and Drummond’s teammates view the two stars, and which one more regularly gets that nod of acknowledgement as “The Man” in Detroit.

Advantage: Griffin