Andre Drummond is slowly growing his passing game

Andre Drummond is a force to be reckoned with. If he weren't, teams would not use Hack-A-Dre on him. Whether it be on the boards or on the roll throwing down monstrous dunks, teams try to find a way to curb him. But Drummond is slowly developing something that could make him even more dangerous: good passing.

Just over a month ago, David Fernandez wrote a wonderful article on what Drummond's next step was offensively. In the article, David explained how Drummond often takes the first shot rather than kicking the ball out when he gets the ball in the post:

On 247 possessions in the post, Drummond has shot the ball 207 times. That means 84% of the time he’s collecting the ball down-low, a shot’s going up, and he’s not converting at a high rate either.

Well, things have started to change. This could be Stan Van Gundy's doing, or what seemed to be a drop in confidence for the big fella, but those shoot-first numbers have dropped.

Stats.nba.com uses Post Touches instead of possessions. At the time of David's writing, stats.nba.com said Drummond had 375 post touches, taking 260 shots. That is a shot on 69-percent of his post touches. Since then, Drummond had another 118 post touches, but only shot 75 times. That is 64-percent.

And if he has shot less, then he has passed more. The following chart is broken down into five different segments of the season.

So Drummond has been taking fewer and fewer shots in the post, and he's been converting them better. Despite him shooting less when receiving a pass in the post, he's still getting the ball in the post nearly as often.

At the writing of David's article, Drummond had 375 post touches in 44 games, or 8.5 per game, while shooting 5.9 times per game in the post. Since then, he's had another 118 post touches in 16 games, or 7.4 per game, while shooting 4.7 times per game in the post.

Here is a chart that shows Drummond's passing over those same five segments of the season.

In Toronto last night, Drummond got the first assist of the game on the first possession of the game -- a cross court pass to Reggie Jackson for an open three. A few possessions later, Drummond got tangled up with a couple of Raptors around him and instead of forcing up a shot, which he would do in the past, he saw an open player for another triple.

Drummond still has a long ways to go before he's considered a good passing big man. However, it appears that something has happened to open up Drummond's eyes and start passing the ball more. His turnovers are no higher than they were in the first 50 games, so he is taking good care of the ball while also setting up his teammates better.

Have you noticed Drummond's passing lately? Does it have you enthused about the chemistry of this team? Let us know in the comments.