Things Are Finally Going to Work for the Pelicans

The Rebuild
Jul 28, 2017 · 7 min read

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The New Orleans Hornets had Chris Paul, now the New Orleans Pelicans have Anthony Davis. Chris Paul had a good career with the Hornets, and played a lot of meaningful, competitive games on some good teams. Anthony Davis has had a good career with the Pelicans, but has not played in many competitive and meaningful games with good teams.

Davis has been dragging along a lot of Tyrekes Evan and Omer Asiks and Alexises Ajinca. He spent some time with Ryan Anderson and Eric Gordon — two guys who proved how valuable they can be last year with the Houston Rockets. But neither of them could stay healthy when playing in New Orleans, which — when paired with Davis’ spotty injury history — brings up some questions about the quality of the Pels’ medical staff.

Davis has put up amazing numbers so far in his career, and ended up in the playoffs exactly once, where he and the Pels became the first victims of the current Golden State Warriors juggernaut, getting swept despite being up 20 points in the fourth quarter of Game 3 (By the way, the no-foul-call on the second shot in the video I linked here has to be one of the worst calls in sports history).

CP3 eventually decided he wanted to go somewhere else. If things don’t improve soon, Davis’ fate will likely be similar. That’s why Dell Demps and the New Orleans front office went out and got motherfucking Boogie Cousins. If this story is going to have the same ending as CP3’s, Demps was going to make sure they didn’t take the same steps to get there.

Now, the two best offensive bigs in the entire league are on the same team. It got off to a rocky start after the trade went down last year. The team was sub-.500 after adding Cousins. They were outscored by opponents at a rate of 1.9 points per 100 possessions with Cousins on the court, and put up a plus-1.5 net rating with him on the bench. The Pels’ two most played lineups after acquiring Cousins were both very good, but, as you can see below, the one without Cousins was significantly better:

The NBA community was once losing their minds with excitement over pairing Davis with his spiritual twin Boogie Cousins. Two astoundingly talented bigs who have never gotten the right supporting cast coming together to tear the league down. After their rocky start, that excitement has dwindled. The consensus opinion doesn’t seem to be with the Pels making the playoffs.

Nah. It’s finally going to happen. Sometimes, it is just time for things to work. And that’s where the Pelicans, The Brow, and Boogie are all at. It’s time. I’m taking it all. 45+ wins. The five seed. A first round playoff win. They will even play to a competitive sweep against the Warriors.

This is first and foremost a spiritual thing. A fate thing. Players like Anthony Davis and Demarcus Cousins don’t just sit on the outside of the playoffs every year. Both of these guys are due for some breaks. Putting them both together only tempts the fates even more.

But I’m not JUST saying this because my irrational love for Boogie and the name “New Orleans Pelicans” has driven me mad, or because I feel strong inklings from the basketball gods. I really like their squad.

Their best lineup — which should be their starting lineup, but it’s uncertain who they will start at the three — should be killer. Jrue Holiday, Rajon Rondo, E’Twuan Moore, DeMarcus Cousins, and Anthony Davis is one of the league’s rare lineups of five guys who contribute on both ends. This is, of course, assuming that Rondo is buying in and playing at a high level. That is far from a safe assumption these days, but I do think this is the first time Rondo is actually in the right situation since his peak Celtics days.

If Rondo is able to compete at a high level, that lineup is a modern NBA dream in many ways. You have four guys who can create shots for themselves and for others. You’ve got five guys who can space the floor. Rondo’s reputation as an awful shooter precedes him, but he shoots 35 percent or better from three every year. Even if it’s at a low-volume, that’s satisfactory considering he will be the worst shooter on the floor. Add in his excellent passing, and his skillset should be perfect for this lineup.

The bench isn’t going to blow your mind — but the Pels have a sneaky depth that beats most teams they will be competing with for a playoff spot. The rotation is 10 deep with players who can play. Beyond their best five guys already listed, they have Solomon Hill — overpaid but an excellent defender who made the defense almost four full points better per 100 possessions last year — a scoring guard who gave them some fun minutes in Jordan Crawford, a solid bench wing in Quincy Pondexter, and solid power forwards Dante Cunningham and Donatas Montiejunas.

Beyond that, if you take a look at the team’s metrics post-Boogie-trade, a lot of the negatives can be explained away pretty easily. Most of Cousins’ negative metrics can be traced to his minutes without Anthony Davis on the floor. In the 20 minutes Cousins shared the floor with Montiejunas, they were a nightmarish minus-16.7 per 100 possessions. He played with Cunningham for a larger sample of 182 minutes and posted a minus-10.5. In another 14 minutes where Cousins played with backup center Alexis Ajinca, the Pels were minus-18.2 — Ajinca may not play at all this year. Those account for nearly half of the 574 minutes Cousins has played as a Pelican so far.

Yes, Boogie will have to continue playing minutes without AD on the floor. But likely less. Gentry began splitting his two bigs’ minutes after they got off to a rocky start last year, likely in a foolish effort to salvage their playoff chances. Davis and Cousins were only the Pels fifth most-played duo post-All-Star-break, an odd stat for the team’s two obvious best players. But Boogie and The Brow’s chemistry improved as the season went on, and they ended up as a plus-2.8 in 394 minutes together.

That was without a training camp or much opportunity to get used to playing with each other at all. Neither Boogie or AD have played with another star, high-usage big in their careers, so it is going to take some adjusting. There is every reason to believe those minutes will be even better next year.

Not only will Boogie be on the court without AD less often, those minutes with AD on the bench should also greatly improve in 2017–18. Boogie and AD needed an adjustment period to get used to playing together, but that adjustment period will be even more important for the bench units. The Pels’ role players — which have had a surprising amount of continuity considering how bad the team has been — are used to relying on Davis as the engine that runs the team. So when he was off of the floor, things were always going to be a struggle, even when he was replaced with another star in his spot.

Maybe the team will always be better when AD is it’s engine instead of Cousins. But there is every reason to believe bench units built around Cousins will improve significantly. After all, Sacramento Kings’ lineups with Cousins were typically average to above-average, and they could only put out “bench lineups” considering they never had multiple good players on the roster at once.

Basically, the Pels’ were a minus-11.1 with Davis on the bench after the All-Star-break, and they still went .500. Those minutes just need to regress to normalcy, along with expected improvement from the Boogie+Brow lineups, and the team will be in great shape.

New Orleans is one of the eight teams competing for four playoff spots. The Warriors, Spurs, Rockets, and Thunder are clear playoff locks. After that, it is a bit of a clusterfuck. The four teams who filled out the playoffs last year — the Jazz, the Clippers, the Grizzlies, and the Trail Blazers — all got worse or stayed the same. The Nuggets, Mavericks, Wolves, and Pelicans can all be expected to get better.

To me, the Pelicans are the clear standout from that group. The Nuggets took a major step by adding Paul Millsap — but the defense will be a huge issue. I’m worried about the Jazz and the Clippers ability to score the ball with consistency. The Pels’ depth trounces that of the Wolves — and I think Butler and Wiggins are a dreadful fit. The talent of the Blazers and the Mavs just doesn’t match up to the Pels, nor a few of the other teams on this list. I’m certain the Grizz will make the playoffs because they still have Marc Gasol and Mike Conley, but I’m not sure how many good players are really on that roster right now.

The Boogie trade was a smart move no matter how things turn out. But it has given this season a sense of urgency. Davis is far from the end of his contract, but the Pels have put all of their eggs in Boogie’s basket. If this isn’t the time everything finally works, that time may not be coming.

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Lots of words on basketball. I get mad easy. Blogs by Jake Hirsohn probably. Read tweets @FettyYeJepsen. Send NBA questions to TheRebuildJake@gmail.com.

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