How does Quincy Pondexter fit with the New Orleans Pelicans?

After a weekend full of rumors and reports about who was and wasn’t leaving the New Orleans Pelicans, Adrian Wojnarowski reported Sunday night that Quincy Pondexter would officially be a member of the Pelicans on Monday.

"The Boston Celtics, Memphis Grizzlies and New Orleans Pelicans have agreed on a three-team, five-player trade that sends Jeff Green to the Grizzlies, league sources told Yahoo Sports.The trade will send the Grizzlies’ Tayshaun Prince, New Orleans’ Austin Rivers and a future Memphis first-round pick – likely coming in 2019 – to the Celtics, league sources told Yahoo Sports.Memphis will send forward Quincy Pondexter and a 2015 second-round pick to the Pelicans and the Pelicans will move guard Russ Smith to the Grizzlies, sources said. The Grizzlies held Prince and Pondexter out of Sunday’s game against the Phoenix Suns."

So how does Pondexter, a player who started his career in New Orleans, fit in his second stint in the Big Easy? Let’s take a look.

A potentially deadly corner specialist.

Pondexter is basically a one-trick pony offensively, but it just so happens that one trick is one that the Pelicans could use from a rotation player right now. For his career Pondexter is a 33.5 percent shooter from behind the three-point line and just a 41.6 percent shooter overall.

Pondexter’s best three-point shooting year came in 2012-2013, which also happens to be the best season of his career so far, when he shot 39.5 percent from behind the arc for Memphis on 2.6 attempts per game. Where Pondexter gets his threes from though is the most important thing for the Pelicans offense.

Per the NBA Media stats site, the Pelicans rank 25th in the league in corner three-point attempts for the season with just 157 attempts so far this year. The issue for the Pelicans is that their two best three-point shooters, Ryan Anderson and Jrue Holiday, both get their threes out of the pick-and-pop or in transition which leads to way more above the break threes (where the Pelicans also rank 25th in attempts with 534).

With the acquisition of Pondexter the Pelicans have potentially acquired a player who can spot up in the corners and provide a real threat as his three-point shot chart from that career year in 2012-2013 shows.

If Pondexter can get back to spotting up in the corner and drilling threes around the Pelicans main scoring weapons his should fit in just fine on offense.

The defined role of spot-up shooter should also help Pondexter’s overall shooting percentage and effectiveness rise as much of his struggles since that career year were related to an increased role Pondexter wasn’t able to handle according to Grizzly Bear Blues.

"Per Synergy Sports Technology, spotting up was still far and away the main source of Pondexter’s offense in 2013-14, but it fell to 34.6% from 43.6% in 2012-13. There were increases elsewhere to offset this, most notably in pick-and-roll ball handler and isolation situations (13.5% and 6.7% of Pondexter’s offense respectively in 2013-14 after accounting for just 4.3% and 4.5% in 2012-13)."

With Jrue Holiday, Tyreke Evans, Anthony Davis and Ryan Anderson set as the main offensive creators in New Orleans, Pondexter should never be asked to create offense which he just isn’t capable of doing anyway.

Another perimeter defender.

The Pelicans have just one good wing defender on the roster right now in Dante Cunningham. While Cunningham has done well so far this year as a small forward defender asking him to defend the most athletic guys at that position and shooting guards is just impossible.