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Friday 29 January 2021 21:25, UK
The New Orleans Pelicans added a new head coach and reliable veterans in the offseason but have fallen away from the playoff race and are still struggling to maximise the infinite offensive talents of both Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram.
Sometimes, you have to take two steps backward to move forward.
The New Orleans Pelicans let go of long-time coach Alvin Gentry and fan favourite Jrue Holiday at the end of last season. The hope was that adding new coach Stan Van Gundy, reliable center Steven Adams from the Oklahoma City Thunder and point guard Eric Bledsoe from the Milwaukee Bucks would result in this fun, plucky team that teases a top-eight finish taking the next step and earning real playoff experience.
Perhaps they are still on that second step back, because so far in the 2020-21 season the Pelicans are on track to finish with a worse record than their previous campaign.
Maybe this is not a step back at all. Just a step slower.
Last season, the Pelicans made up for youth and inexperience by running. Using a small but powerful line-up they were second in the league in terms of pace and were top five in points per game. With Zion Williamson and Derrick Favors trading minutes at center, dual ball in handlers Lonzo Ball and Jrue Holiday, and Brandon Ingram at forward they outscored opponents by 17.9 points in 282 minutes throughout the year.
In the first 15 games of this season, they are 23rd in pace and their points per game has gone from 115 to 108.
Looking at these numbers, it’s easy to think Van Gundy’s system has ruined all the tangible progress the Pelicans had previously managed. But Ingram still has the length and fluidity to become an unstoppable scorer, while Williamson remains a physical presence not seen in the NBA since Charles Barkley was at his peak in the early 1990s.
It’s difficult to see this Pelicans team not succeeding in a run-and-gun style or a slow but methodical physical battle, with either one of those players setting up the offense or finishing a play, running the pick and roll together or being a threat off the ball.
What will be key, in whatever style they play in the next few years, is getting the right players around them to hide their flaws and fill out the holes in their game. Right now, it’s not clear if that is the case.
An interesting loss from last season has been Favors. He had built a solid career as a back-up center and occasional power forward in Utah alongside Rudy Gobert, and his work with the Jazz was underrated to the point where they traded him to the Pelicans last season in the final year of his contract.
The Jazz got worse on offense and defense, and crashed out of the playoffs after losing a 3-1 lead to the Denver Nuggets in the first round of the playoffs - despite many considering them a threat for a Western Conference Finals at the start of the year.
On the flip side, the Pelicans trod water with Favors while Williamson delayed the start of his rookie year and missed chunks of the season returning from knee surgery. Favors’ nine points and 9.8 rebounds were not earning him All-Star credentials, but his experience as a glue guy who can play two positions paid dividends.
Even if he played basically all of his time at center in New Orleans, he does not have the ego to demand touches and fitted in well around the young stars.
Filling his spot this season is another low-maintenance, high-character player who can be a locker room leader. Steven Adams has earned a lot of respect from great talents that made their way through Oklahoma City in the past eight years. He is offering the Pelicans practically the same numbers that Favors did last season, but he is more limited positionally.
The vast majority of Adams’ minutes have been alongside Williamson, with Ingram, Ball and Bledsoe. The latter is replacing Holiday: a leader for the Pelicans over many years, a great defender and someone who could score when his number was called.
It will be no easy task for Bledsoe to replace Holiday, but the pair matched up well on paper - they have a similar build, have bounced around the league, can shoot and have a defensive approach to the game.
Bledsoe offers slightly fewer counting stats across the board, but freeing up a few more shots a game for Ingram or Williamson is not necessarily a bad thing - you want the best players on the court doing the most.
The only other player in the starting unit is Lonzo Ball, who has struggled so far this year. He is taking one shot per game more than what he did last season, and he is basically missing them all. His efficiency has slipped, the positive signs on his three-point shot in 2019-20 look like a fluke and even though his usage is up, his assists and rebounding numbers have gone down.
JJ Redick’s numbers have also fallen off a cliff.
He is approaching 37 years of age, and has never had the size to be a major plus on the defensive end. He is basically only on a roster these days to hit three-point shots and will go down in history as one of the best to ever do it, but early in this season he is a liability on the court, scoring just 29 per cent from distance and averaging -4.6 points per 100 possessions compared to the league average player.
This is why you have seen Ball, Bledsoe and Redick in trade rumours in recent weeks. The franchise is disappointed to be so far away from the playoff hunt after optimism last year and is searching for quick fixes.
Maybe this is not a quick fix situation. Van Gundy was brought in to establish sound defensive principles in a young squad - something sorely lacking during Gentry’s tenure. The offense might suffer as a result, especially with a shortened training camp and an unusual off-season when players couldn’t train as normal.
It's easy to get people scoring, it’s harder to get them buying in defensively.
Keep in mind that the generational talent drafted first overall in 2019 has not even played 40 regular season games yet, and is therefore still getting used to facing an upgraded talent pool compared to his single season playing college basketball with Duke.
Williamson is a unique talent, and it might take a few more seasons to figure out where he is the biggest threat: Power forward? Center? Point forward? One thing is for sure, when the ball is in his hands, the defense is terrified.
There is no minutes restriction for Williamson this year and he is averaging more than five minutes more per game than as a rookie. When he hit the court last season, the team basically gave him the ball on every possession, which led to ridiculously exciting spurts and an average of 22 points per game. That figure has increased slightly, but with a more team-focused offense when he is on the floor he is now averaging three points per game less per 36 minutes than he did last season.
Learning to play with a team is a big part of developing as an individual. There are possessions when Williamson and Ingram are loaded onto one side of the court as a double offensive threat, only for Adams to work a dribble hand-off with Ball on the other side of the floor with Bledsoe as the corner shooter. They are able to create and score thanks to the extra space provided by putting two powerhouses on the court away from the action. Sometimes Williamson and Ingram do not even have to touch the ball.
Ingram is someone who has demonstrated he can score from basically anywhere. He is posting nearly identical numbers to what he achieved last year as an All-Star for the first time, proving he can seamlessly fit into any system.
Perhaps it is just early in the season, with a shortened training camp and a new coach trying to embed a different system with a group of predominately young players. Williamson is 20, Ingram is 23, and so is Ball. Adams is somehow still only 27, and while there are a few older faces filling out the roster elsewhere, there is a bevvy of draft picks in the coming years thanks to returns for Holiday and Anthony Davis.
The players the Pelicans are building around have a long road ahead and many steps to walk but they are still one of the most entertaining teams in the league. They will be for some time.
