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Overall
Win/Loss Record (as of November 30th): 7-8, fifth place Southwest
Division
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20
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This Month:
21
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Team
Statistics and League Rank
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Individual
Statistical Leaders
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SDH’s Worst of the Month: Tyreke Evans
 Despite three rocky seasons following his epic rookie campaign, the New Orleans Pelicans still chose to invest in a player who has thus far been a sad disappointment in his career. The Pelis chose to ignore all the red flags acquiring Tyreke Evans in a sign and trade deal at the price of 44$ million and so far the team's gamble has far from paid off. Coming into the season Tyreke has been absolutely awful posting a career low of 11.7 points per game while shooting a rather abysmal .125 from beyond the arc and has thus far looked completely out of sync with his new team. Although it is just the beginning of the season and there is still plenty of basketball to be played, if one were to look at his career thus far, it certainly does not look good as his number have been consistently been going down since his rookie year. Hopefully the troubled guard will find his way in the Big Easy or else those in the Pelicans' front office will not only find themselves with egg on their faces, but a four year dead weight contact in which they a stuck with yet again. |
SDH’s First of the Month: Anthony Davis
 After a solid yet unspectacular rookie campaign, it seemed as if the first overall pick of the 2012 Draft would be anything more than a solid player with no real star potential; however, that all changing at the start of the season when Anthony Davis come onto the court and lit not only the Big Easy but the entire league as well. From last season, Davis went from averaging just 13.5 points, 8.2 rebounds and 1.8 blocks per game to an astonishing 20 points, 12 rebounds, and 4 blocks this season thus finally living up to the expectations that many had envisioned for him. Many thought it may take Anthony Davis a couple more years to adjust to a point where he would be one of the league's true elite big men, but at just 20 years old, this young prodigy has already reached that point despite him just growing into his 6 foot 11 inch frame only two years ago. What's even more shocking is that Davis has yet to reach the tip of the iceberg when it comes to fully utilizing his skills and talents as he has a far deeper arsenal of offensive moves which include being able to dribble like a point guard and launch it from outside. Unfortunately, one he gets all of that together, he will most likely be out of New Orleans and onto another team as he may just follow the same trend as what +Chris Paul and many others who left small market teams going nowhere in order to win an +NBA champioship ring. |
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They say that "the more things change, the more they stay the same," and that describes the New Orleans Pelicans to a tee as they completely changed their name, logo, and look only to return to the same result--at the bottom of their division with a mediocre record. The Pelicans came in with not only a new look, but also new faces in which they paid a rather high premium to jump start the team's fortunes and bring them on their way to not only bring the team into the playoffs, but also set them up to become one of the Western Conference's elite teams. The team's front office dolled out up to 99$ million for the next five years on two players who were supposed to lift this long ignored struggling downtrodden franchise into finally the NBA spotlight--a point guard who was an All Star last season in +Jrue Holiday and an athletic wing man who was capable of seamlessly playing all three perimeter positions in +Tyreke Evans. Paired with a talented and developing young core that consisted of Anthony Davis, Eric Gordon, +Austin Rivers, and Ryan Anderson, the New Look Pelicans were of to glide into a new era of NBA basketball in the Big Easy, making everyone forget the once near defunct Hornets that the both the team, its fans, and the league were glad to see disappear. Unfortunately, despite their best efforts at changing the look with a new logo and new players, as the old saying goes, "you can put lipstick on a pig, but that pig is still a pig," and that has certainly been the case for New Orleans as they have come into the season looking the same way as they did a season ago when they were called the Hornets.
Thus far the new look Pelicans have failed miserably in separating itself from its former identity as they have continued to play the same uninspiring ball that has yet to endear itself to the team's local fan base and populace. Offensively, they can be considered a middle of the pack team ranking between the range of eleventh and nineteenth in the league in scoring and field goal percentage which can be considered respectable by most standards. Sad to say, however, is that New Orleans allow their opponents to perform just as well, if not better on the offensive end allowing them to shoot close to .480 from the field compared to their .450 and despite allowing them to shoot such a high percentage, the Pels also allow their opponents to rebound at about the same rate. That means that the Pelicans' opponents not only shoot at a better clip with relatively same amount of shot attempts, but also are able to get as many rebounds even though they miss fewer shots and have less opportunities to go after the boards. One can definitely deduce from looking at those numbers that the Pelicans, despite their new outward appearances, are in anyways near to playoff ready, especially in the extremely strong and competitive Western Conference. To their credit, the Pelicans do manage to force their opponents to turnover the ball than they do at a rather high margin; however upon further analysis this can also be put under scrutiny as it associates to the aforementioned field goal percentage disparity. Although they rank among the top team in the league in committing and forcing opponents turnovers, since New Orleans only connect on less than .450 from the field, their ability to score on turnovers is not nearly as good as their opponents, who are allowed to hit at a far higher proficiency. Hypothetically, a team is capable of potentially scoring at best four points per turnover if one considers the outside chance of a player getting fouled at the three point line while connecting thus earning a chance for a four point play at the free throw line. Using the same premise with New Orleans, factoring in their opponents turnovers per game along with their field goal accuracy as a team, the Peli's have a chance to score 30.1 out of a potential 67.6 points whereas on the other hand although they turn over the ball less, their opponents probably get more bank for their buck than they do. Out of the 13.8 turnovers that the New Orleans Pelicans commit, their opponents get an estimated average of 26.2 of the potential 55 points thus giving the Pelicans just a +3.9 margin over those who face them in points off of turnovers despite having a superior advantage when it come to protecting the ball. So therefore, in spite of their efforts to pressure the ball on defense while forcing teams to give up the ball, as long as the Cans allow competing teams to shoot the lights out against them while at the same time do not convert those turnovers into points, then their supposed efforts on the defensive end can all be considered null and void. Having such idiosyncrasies do not bode well for a team trying to break through the glass ceiling of the caste system otherwise known as the Western Conference where even perfect execution on both ends of the court is not a guarantee of a playoff berth let alone a shot at the title. Right now, the Pelicans are stuck behind the terrible Texas threesome in the +San Antonio Spurs, +Houston Rockets and +Dallas Mavericks and as it stands now, it does not look like that will change anytime soon in the near future. The Spurs and Mavericks have essentially owned the division for more than a decade and with Houston on the rise with their dynamic duo of +Dwight Howard and +James Harden leading it, there is little space left for a struggling young team as the Pelicans to even make a dent in their division, let alone the Conference. All eight playoff spots in the West are essentially spoken for not only for this season, but unless there is some miraculous event such as an devastating earthquake that swallows the states of California, Oregon, and Arizona whole, the Pelican will be on the outside looking in for quite some time. With such a bleak future ahead, it is almost a near certainty that their prized prodigy Anthony Davis will see the futility playing in the Big Easy and start looking elsewhere thus force the Pelicans to say goodbye yet again to another superstar player. So even with the new name along with the flashy bells and whistles, New Orleans remains no better off than they were when the were sporting those awful yellow, teal and purple uniforms the previous season. The Pelicans spent big money to bring in players to reverse their fortunes, but so far they have not panned out with their three highest priced acquisitions failing miserably to live up to the worth of their contracts let alone any real expectations. Eric Gordon, who the Pelicans locked down for the next three years at nearly 45$ million has failed to even suit up let alone have yet to pay any dividends as he has spent most of his tenure in the Big Easy on the bench in street clothes and will probably never live up to all of his hype when New Orleans originally signed. Jrue Holiday has certainly not played up to the same All Star level as he did in Philly and he is on the hook for four more years at the price of around 40$ million while Tyreke Evans, who the Pels signed for the next four years at 44$ million, has been a complete bust to say the least. Just those two factor point to the sad reality that the Pelicans are not going anywhere for a very long time and no name change or new look is going to change anything as it is simply just a pig and will always be a pig no matter how much lipstick they put on it. |
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Wednesday, January 8, 2014
SDH Presents the NBA's Worst to First for November: 21. New Orleans Pelicans
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