New Orleans Pelicans Media Day Running Thread/Roundup

Monday afternoon marks another step closer to the start of the NBA season with the New Orleans Pelicans holding media day in New Orleans as preparation for the coming season. There will be some news, some funny quotes and lots of guys talking today so Pelican Debrief will be keeping a post dedicated to the event. Be sure to check back as more and more stuff gets posted.

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• Pelicans getting the fans involved with their upcoming festival

Media day isn’t all serious: 

Media day is a stressful time. Players are asked a ton of questions in a short amount of time and have to make sure nothing they say will cause controversy. Thankfully the Pelicans realized that and helped their players relax and wind down in some free time with some smoothies. Alexis Ajinca seemed to really enjoy his.

  This would be huge:  For the first time in a few years Eric Gordon didn’t have to spend the summer rehabbing an injury. What that allowed Gordon to do was continue to work on his game and building his strength up and according to Gordon it has made a difference.

If Gordon can actually show his old explosiveness the Pelicans complexion would completely change as it would add another potential great player.Ryan Anderson is done taking things for granted:  Ryan Anderson’s neck injury was one of the scariest moments of the NBA season last year. It was so scary in fact that Anderson wasn’t sure when he would be back on the court, if it all.

Luckily Anderson is now back on the court and he is excited for what is to come this season, including times he will be paired with Tyreke Evans to perhaps carry a bench group.

 Monty is getting creative:  The Pelicans have six players that seem to stand out from the rest of the roster in talent. How exactly they get all of those guys a fair amount of minutes this year is going to be one of the more interesting things to watch. Monty Williams is already thinking about ways to do it.

I like the idea of Evans at small forward more than Anderson but at least Williams is showing a willingness to experiment with lineups. Getting your best players on the floor is key to winning games so New Orleans is going to need to find ways things work so they can win enough to make the playoffs. This is going to get interesting:  Trying to guess how the Pelicans will precede with Tyreke Evans is an impossible task. Evans seems to fit best as the primary creator off the bench before finishing games at small forward with Anthony Davis, Jrue Holiday, Omer Asik and Eric Gordon but Evans doesn’t seem to feel that way.

While it looks the decision was going to be made easier with his injury Evans seems to have high hopes for his recovery.

It will be interesting to see how things play out with Tyreke but for now Jrue Holiday had a pretty great take on him.

Holiday to be brought along slowly:  With Tyreke Evans already being out for three to six weeks with a hamstring injury the Pelicans will be looking for their other guards to pick up the slack. Unfortunately for them Jrue Holiday is still not fully recovered from his stress fracture last season and will be brought along slowly to start the year.

It obviously isn’t great news but not rushing Holiday back is a smart move for New Orleans as another injury to him would be close to a disaster. John Salmons excited to lead:  I’m not sure this is good news but John Salmons is excited to be the Pelicans veteran leader.

I would have thought that Omer Asik was going to be that guy once the Pelicans acquired him but I guess Salmons is going to make sure his voice is heard. Also there was this from Salmons, which kind of shows the problem that a lot of people had with the Pelicans adding him to a young roster.