New Orleans Pelicans year in review: Anthony Davis

Anthony Davis has had a confusing year for the New Orleans Pelicans. Despite his stat-sheet looking vaguely familiar, he managed to improve in a number of ways.

Davis is the glue that holds this team together. Outside of him, no one really matters. That fact that we have him on a five-year contract is the only thing which give this team any reason to be optimistic or any path to travel down.

Naturally, his development is a matter on consequence for fans of this team. We’ve been spoiled, because Davis has improved at historic rates each year he’s been in the league so far. Since we’ve gotten accustomed to seeing him increase his point totals by 4-5 points a year, many expected Davis to put up something close to 27-10-3 stat-line this season.

This season Davis averaged 24.3 points, 10.3 rebounds, 1.9 assists, 2.0 blocks, 1.3 steals, and 2.0 turnovers a game, a slight drop off from last season’s line of 24.4 points, 10.2 rebounds, 2.2 assists, 2.9 blocks, 1.5 steals, and 1.4 turnovers.

So why didn’t Davis improve this season? Or at least why weren’t his improvements evident?

The answer is that the areas Davis had to improve in were more about leaning on areas of weakness, as opposed to refining his areas of strength.

Davis was an incredible mid-range shooter last season and also had the ability drive past slower big men. If he wasn’t hitting you with a 48% dagger from 15-20 feet, he was running right past you and smoothly laying the ball in.

He was also used to playing in a very safe style of Monty Williams offense. Last season he got the ball off a lot of screens, and got to operate in 2-3 very comfortable areas of the floor.

He could have tried to get that midrange shooting percentage up to 52%, and he could have gotten even more comfortable in his 2-3 zones of comfort, but instead he and Gentry decided to use this season to expand his game and push his potential ceiling.

Gentry pushed Davis out of his comfort zone is many areas. For instance, he had him post up a lot more than he did the previous season. Davis has never gotten comfortable as a post scorer, and was relatively inefficient from that area up until mid March and early April.

Gentry also had Davis shoot threes. He took 0.6 less two pointers per game this season, and took 1.6 more threes. That kind of shift in shot selection is going to have a slight effect on a player’s efficiency. Davis wasn’t exactly a sniper from deep this season (32%), but that’s acceptable given this is the first season he’s started shooting them. If he can improve that to around 34-35% next season it will be a reliable weapon.

Gentry also had Davis increase his playmaking responsibilities. He wasn’t running the offense through Davis as a passer, but he had Davis dribble the ball across the court in transition in order to push the pace and get Davis more comfortable as a facilitator.

The three major regressions this season for Davis have been his shooting efficiency going down, his turnover numbers going up, and his block numbers going down.

The fact that he started shooting more from deep as well as playing more in the post explains why his FG% decreased slightly. Meanwhile, the fact that Gentry had Davis push the ball and dribble in transition explains why his turnover numbers increased slightly.

As for his block numbers, that one is simply an effort issue. Anyone who was still watching games from February through April could tell that Davis was clearly putting in minimal effort on the defensive end. He wasn’t Enes Kanter level or anything, but he wasn’t making those insane chase-down hustle plays he made in the ’14-’15 season.

Additionally, Davis was adjusting to an entirely new offensive system as well.

Next season he will be used to shooting threes, used to dribbling in transition, used to playing in the post, and used to Gentry’s more liberating offensive system. He will be able to take that leap in raw statistical production we were all expecting, because he won’t have to expand his comfort zone quite as much.

The one area I still feel Davis struggles in is his leadership. He’ll figure out his shooting, footwork, and defense, but I’m not sure he can ever “learn” to be a locker-room leader or an emotional spokesperson for the team.

Regardless, we’re only halfway through our journey with Anthony Davis. We have him for at least four more years, and so it’s a good thing he’s pushing his comfort zone now. The final thing to note about this season is that we were a 30 win team, so he might not have been inspired to put forth his best effort the entire time.

You might blame him for that, but personally I find his situation fairly easy to empathize with. Plus he dropped 59 and 20 one night so I can’t really complain.