I would undoubtedly say yes, playing piano makes learning drumming much easier. You already start with a wide base of knowledge of musical form, rhythm, and coordination. Regarding coordination, even though you’re using just two hands (and sometimes a foot pedal), a pianist could easily have 3 lines of music happening (a bass line in the left, melody in the upper right, and music ideas/lines happening the middle or anywhere else). So, while you may not be using all your limbs, your brain is used to processing and parsing out multiple musical themes, and that’s the first step.
I’ve played piano for 43 years now and counting starting at age 5, and 3 years ago I got a drum set. At first, I was surprised to realize neither the drum set itself nor playing the drums is symmetrical. The drums seemed “backwards” as the set goes from low to high as you travel from right to left, which is opposite a piano. And I hadn’t realized how the roles of the hands of a beginning drummer were often split, i.e. simplistically that one hand may generally play “time” on a cymbal (or wherever) while the other plays other rhythms.
Faced with the conundrum of which hand to do what, I asked a drum teacher (whom I knew, but didn’t study with), and he said it would behoove me to learn everything both ways, i.e. playing time with either hand. He said his students who did this took longer to learn at first, but then developed faster later.
So, I set out to learn both ways. At first, I found it MUCH easier to play steady time with my left hand rather than my right due to my piano background. I practiced, though, and now I generally play open-handed, i.e. the high hat with my left hand and a ride cymbal with my right. If you practice, it will come!
Since I am right handed, no matter what I do, the technique and control of my right hand is better than my left, so if there is some more intricate stick work that challenging for me, I can chose to do that with my right hand.
One unanticipated outcome of learning to play steady time with my right hand was how it carried over to my piano playing. My left hand gained greater independence and I’m much more likely to through in a little syncopated or little flurry of a bass line with my left hand than I ever did before. Jazz pianists who often play chords with varying rhythms in their left hand while soloing in their right (while playing with a bassist) would likely already have a heightened level of hand independence.
I actually started some drum lessons a few months ago. My drum teacher commented that he thinks it’d be way easier to teach a pianist to drum than vice versa, not that he’s had much experience with either.
So, that’s my long winded take on it. Have fun with it!