Anthony Davis says Andre Drummond is a ‘great fit’ with Lakers, expects him to ‘blossom’ when everyone’s healthy

Anthony Davis has high hopes for his new front court partner, Andre Drummond.

Anthony Davis practiced with the Los Angeles Lakers for the first time since February on Wednesday and, at long last, he was able to get some run alongside Andre Drummond, who signed with Lakers in March. While it was only their first day together, Davis saw enough from Drummond — both physically and mentally — to feel good about their partnership going forward.

“Dre’s a good adapter,” Davis said. “We had a couple of plays today in practice where we connected, but he’s a good adapter, he’s always asking questions. He asked me today “AD if you catch it here, where do you want me to go? If you’re doing this, where you want to be?’ He’s always trying to learn knowing that it’s different when I’m on the floor, his role changes a little bit.

“I think it’ll be fairly quick for us to really adapt to each other because we’re both guys who want to learn from each other and want to win at the end of the day, and when you got two guys that want to win, you find ways to make it happen.”

Drummond has struggled to find consistency in his first handful of games with the Lakers, particularly on the defensive end where, he’s posted a team-worst defensive rating of 112.7. With Drummond off of the court, the Lakers’ defense has been 10.2 points better.

Despite Drummond’s slow start, Davis believes that Drummond has been an impactful player for the Lakers and he expects Drummond’s impact to be more evident when the team is at full strength.

“I think he’s a great fit for us,” Davis said. “He’s been great for so far, but he’s only going to get better. The more he continues to learn the system and the more me and him play with each other, we’ll get better. And then when ‘Bron comes back and he’s getting his lobs, he can he can be the Andre Drummond that everybody is looking forward to, which he’s been, but he really is going to blossom and show everyone why he wanted to come here.”

Davis and Drummond will be limited in the time they spend on the court together at first because Davis will be on a 15-minute restriction, but we’ll at least have an idea of what they’re capable of on both ends of the floor sooner rather than later.

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