Someone once told me that as you get older, you start to care less. There’s a direct correlation between age and how many fucks you have left to give.

That seems to be the case here with Action News GOAT Jim Gardner, who decided to battle a Sixers fan on Twitter Thursday night.

The topic? Basketball. Sixers basketball. Specifically, Andre Drummond vs. Dwight Howard.

It all started with an innocuous tweet:

Then, a guy named @jackiesdad33 was the recipient of a quote tweet in which Gardner revealed his dislike for Dwight Howard:


Jackiesdad33 then replied with an image of Dwight’s numbers over the last few years, and Gardner responded with this:

And Jackiesdad33 proceeded to tell him that Andre Drummond is serviceable:

There’s a lot to process here!

On paper, we’d say Andre Drummond is a clear upgrade over Dwight Howard. I personally believe that Jackiesdad33 is wrong when he says that Drummond “is serviceable, just like Dwight.”

For starters, Drummond is seven years younger. He’s 28 years old and Howard was 35 when he played here last season. Dwight did a lot of good things rebounding the ball and spotting Joel Embiid off the bench, but in the short sample size we have in 2021, Drummond is out-performing him in several non-shooting categories:

The argument between Jackiesdad33 and Jim Gardner seems to center around field goal percentage, which honestly isn’t that important. Both guys are gonna do a little bit of rolling and get some offensive rebounds and putbacks. Some dunks and some layups created by driving and cutting teammates. In Drummond’s case, he’s got good three-point shooting around him this season, and he’s been a better passer while committing fewer fouls. Howard was sometimes an adventure on the offensive end, and finished with a chart looking like this:

Drummond, a career 53.7% shooter, is doing his work almost exclusively around the paint through nine games this season:

If you go a little deeper, you find that Drummond is better in most advanced categories. He has a better box +/-, a better win share number, and a better PER (player efficiency rating). Drummond also has a 102.3 individual defensive rating while Howard’s was 106.3 last year. You want a lower DEFRTG number.

If you go through their career logs, Howard has always been a better finisher than Andre Drummond, but Drummond is doing more from an all-around perspective. More assists, fewer fouls, a better defender, and much younger. He’s playing a solid team game on the second unit and contributing to the ball movement. Dwight was certainly “serviceable,” but at the end of the season we’ll probably rate Drummond as better than “serviceable,” assuming the Sixers’ second unit continues to play well. Overall, it’s a better bench this year.

Not sure what it is, maybe something in the water, but our local television personalities have been feisty lately. Mike Jerrick destroyed Ben Simmons live on the air, maybe unfairly. Then Ben was dunked on by Glenn “Hurricane” Schwartz. Now we’ve got Jim Gardner out here battling fans on Twitter.