Pistons' Andre Drummond returns to team activities

Pistons fans, rejoice! Slowly but surely, Andre Drummond continues to make progress toward return. Via MLive, Drummond participated in the team shootaround prior to Monday's loss to the Nets.

Lawrence Frank called Dre's progress "noticeable," and went on to say,

"I think any time you start to reintegrate a guy with your team, that's a positive thing," Frank said. "I think he's definitely on the right track. Obviously, we've been very conservative with this for very intelligent reasons. I think we'll just continue ... to up his work level every day."

As to whether or not the Pistons plan to shut Dre down for the rest of the season as they ride the tank train toward the lottery,

"If a guy's healthy, I think you want him to play, especially a young guy," Frank said. "It's not like he's played a lot of games. Now, if he's not healthy, regardless, obviously you would never do that. But this is a game where we're paid to play.

"If Andre is healthy enough, he'll definitely be on the court. If it's deemed that he's not healthy enough, then he won't."

I think that's a good thing. Assuming Dre is completely healthy, he should play. The Pistons know that Greg Monroe and Andre Drummond are good players individually, but they don't yet know how Greg Monroe and Andre Drummond fit together. And it's reasonable to assume that this fit will be a very important factor in Joe Dumars' considerations as he begins a true rebuild this summer.

Hat tip to Rban in the comments.