This is an article I find myself writing almost every year as a Pelicans fan. Ideally I wish I never wrote one, because that would be mean A) the Pelicans were always healthy and B) the Pelicans always maximized their rotation.
Sadly, health is a fleeting achievement for the Pelicans and maximization of their minutes is something I am often able to criticize.
So I’m going to go through the Pelicans roster, see what minutes each player has played so far, and speculate as to what they should play going forward in the new year.
Players who need their minutes increased:
The three players who need their minutes increased most on this team are Jrue Holiday, Alexis Ajinca, and Quincy Pondexter. Jrue is the most obvious one, I wrote an article a couple of days ago explaining that he is fundamentally back to All-Star form, the Pelican’s 2nd best player, and a necessity and asset moving forward.
Jrue’s minutes currently sit at 23.7 a game, and should increase by at least 50% for the rest of this season to around 32-34 a game. If you haven’t noticed, Jrue’s also been coming off the bench.
No one disagrees that Jrue is a starting level player, though some would argue he seems comfortable coming off the bench and should stay there.
I fundamentally disagree with this logic.
Looking at Jrue’s numbers, he has improved back to his 2013 form (plus some even better shooting) indicating that he simply is back to being who he was rather than becoming something different due to a lesser role.
If you don’t reward a player for great play, you aren’t coaching right. Gentry should embrace Jrue’s emergence and make a clear statement that he is the Robin to Anthony Davis’ Batman. Sure he could still probably bring him off the bench, but why put a ceiling on increasingly great production?
Anthony Davis and Jrue Holiday are the future of this team. Priority #1 should be playing them together as much as possible and making a statement that they are the team’s leaders.
Alexis Ajinca is someone else who need his minutes increased.
Specifically, he needs to be given any and all of Omer Asik’s minutes. Ajinca is simply a much more capable offensive weapon and less of a liability on that end.
Gentry and Dell have made an effort to play Asik, probably due mostly to the fact that they need to showcase him in order to potentially move him. Regardless, Ajinca is the better fit on both ends of the floor.
He’s a fantastic midrange shooter, converting 53% of his shots there and 60% at the rim as well.
If Anthony Davis is going to develop his post game, he needs a guy at C who can give him some space to work and operate. Ajinca provides that space at an elite level.
The counter argument is that Asik brings defense, but this season that simply hasn’t been the case.
Our five man lineup of Evans-Gordon-Gee-Davis-Asik has had an atrocious defensive rating 114.8 while, when you swap ONLY Ajinca into the mix, the lineup of Evans-Gordon-Gee-Davis-Ajinca has had a rating of just 94.1.
Additionally, the Ajinca lineup played at a 96.12 pace while Asik’s lineup played at a slower pace of 93.87. This shows that Ajinca’s lineups were capable of playing better defensively, as well as playing faster (a key staple of the system Gentry and Erman want to create).
The third player who needs his minutes increased is Quincy Pondexter.
We all know that the Pelicans basically turned their season around last year by bringing him in and finally having a stop-gap option at small forward.
Take a look at Quincy Pondexter’s numbers last season as opposed to Alonzo Gee’s this year. I put the numbers in per36 form and added foul rate, win shares and PER to the final three categories as well.
See what I’m saying? Gee is basically a 6’6″ defense/transition dunker.
Imagine now our starting lineup under these changes. Jrue comes in and we get rid of Tyreke’s ball stopping negatives, Ajinca comes in and we get a 53% mid range shooter instead of Omer Asik (and a better defender apparently), and Q-Pon comes in and we move on from Alonzo “all I do is dunk and foul” Gee to a 43% from deep sniper.
I don’t know about you, but if I was Alvin Gentry I would take advantage of these options as soon as possible.
Players who need their minutes reduced:
The three players who need their rotational roles reduced most immediately are Alonzo Gee, Omer Asik, and Tony Douglas. The fact that two of those players are starters may be a hint that I haven’t enjoyed Gentry’s rotations this season as much as I’d hoped.
We already discussed why Ajinca and Pondexter are improvements over Asik and Gee, now we just need to decide how much of a hit those guys are going to take.
My proposed minutes for Asik: 0
My proposed minutes for Gee: 0
That simple.
We have too many good players on a healthy Pelicans roster for those two to even be playing, never mind starting! Some might say taking them out entirely might stretch us too thin, so I’ll respond with a breakdown of how we can have a perfectly functional rotation without them.
Starters:
Jrue Holiday / 3o minutes (all at PG)
Eric Gordon / 30 minutes (all at SG)
Quincy Pondexter / 24 minutes (all at SF)
Anthony Davis / 36 minutes (16 at PF, 20 at C)
Alexis Ajinca / 18 minutes (all at C)
Bench
6th Tyreke Evans 30 / minutes (18 at SG, 12 at SF)
7th Ryan Anderson 30 / minutes (20 at PF, 10 at C)
8th Norris Cole / 18 minutes (all at PG)
9th Dante Cunningham / 12 minutes (all at PF)
10th Luke Babbit / 12 minutes (all SF)
See what I’m saying? In this proposal, we utilize all our players the best we can. This way, Jrue and Davis will be able to play together as much as possible while being surrounded by three shooters who move the ball well.
Additionally, Tyreke will be able to be the “super sixth-man” we envisioned him to be, and his ball hogging will be less of an issue next to Cole and Babbit.
I guess Gee might take some of Babbit’s minutes in situations when defense is more important than spacing the floor for Tyreke, but on balance I think Luke is a better fit next to Evans for spacing reasons.
Hopefully the new year brings improvement and consistency for the Pelicans, this lineup would allow them to begin working towards that and maximize their player’s talents along the way.