Apr 12, 2015; Houston, TX, USA; New Orleans Pelicans forward Luke Babbitt (8) warms up before the game against the Houston Rockets at the Toyota Center. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports
The rankings are everywhere. Sports Illustrated just released their Top 100 NBA Players for the 2015-16 season in the past week. CBS’s Eye on Basketball blog will release their Elite 100 at some point in the coming weeks and ESPN’s NBA Rank will start sparking Twitter debates at some point in September. With that in mind Pelican Debrief decided that ranking the New Orleans Pelicans felt like a logical exercise to do, so welcome to our Pelicans Rank project.
In today’s NBA there are very little singular skills as valued throughout the league as the ability to shoot the basketball from distance. It is why players like Jimmer Fredette continue to get jobs and why players like Anthony Morrow continuously outplay their contracts.
Shooting is also the reason that Luke Babbitt is a member of the New Orleans Pelicans right now, as the team found him in Russia knocking down a ton of shots and brought him back to the NBA. After some time as a stretch-four thanks to injuries, Babbitt settle in as an end of the bench option last year for New Orleans, appearing from time to time to knock down some shots.
But what exactly Babbitt’s future is remains to be seen as he still hasn’t shown enough in other areas of his game to earn real minutes for a good team. As a group we try to figure out Babbitt’s place on the Pelicans roster in this roundtable but first we need to hit the most important Babbitt related question of all that can’t even wait until the next slide.
Luke Babbitt cut his hair. Your reaction?
Austin (@apete1993): It’s just weird. I didn’t even recognize him.
Rick (@RickStoneNBA): This feels wrong. I feel violated. This is not Mr.Chalupa. WHY YOU DO THIS, PELLIS!?!?!?!
Johnny (@JohnnyLouisiana): Dude went from “Cool 60’s classic rocker” to “6’9” leprechaun” in a day.
Charles (@CLaRoccaJR): Luke Babbitt just became significantly less cool.
Matt (@Matt_Cianfrone): This is devastating news. I honestly thought that Babbitt’s hair was the best part of his game. I’m not ready for a world where Babbitt hair flips are not a thing anymore. Hopefully it grows back fast.
Next: On to Less Important Things Like Babbitt's Position