New Orleans Pelicans Rank: Norris Cole Roundtable

Apr 10, 2015; New Orleans, LA, USA; New Orleans Pelicans guard Norris Cole (30) shoots the ball over Phoenix Suns guard

(20) and forward

(12) during the first quarter at the Smoothie King Center. Mandatory Credit: Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports

Norris Cole shot 50 percent on shots from 16 feet to the three-point line last year in New Orleans. How far does that fall this year?

Austin (@apete1993): I am sure that those shots will almost disappear. Everyone is operating under the same assumption that new head coach Alvin Gentry is going to build his offense to replicate the ones he had in Phoenix and Golden State. Those systems almost eliminated mid-range shots, focusing only on layups and threes, the two most efficient shots in basketball. Based on that premise, if Cole comes back to New Orleans, my expectation would be for that percentage to drop because those types of shots won’t be taken.

Rick (@RickStoneNBA): With how quick Alvin Gentry will want to play next year, I expect it to drop quite a bit. Norris Cole had great success mostly due to how open his looks were on the units he played on. Opposing teams chose to slow down other options such as Alexis Ajinca and Tyreke Evans instead of worrying too much about Cole’s range, which seemed poor at certain times in Miami. Cole can shoot, and if he’s left open, he can shoot really well. However, teams are going to gameplan against it much more this year. Expect it to fall by a decent amount.

Nathan( @Nathanheck22): It will most likely fall substantially, but I don’t think it will hurt the team dramatically. With Gentry dragging the franchise into the twenty-first century, I expect Cole’s volume from that range to plummet and his three-point volume to increase substantially. Also, as we saw from Cole last season, he can hit the open shots, and he really is the fourth offensive option coming off the bench behind Tyreke Evans(assuming he comes in as a super sixth man), Ryan Anderson, and Alexis Ajinca. Because defenses will be forced to pay attention to the other more skilled offensive threats, Cole will still get his open looks, but this year they should be from three point range.

Matt (@Matt_Cianfrone): A pretty substansial amount. Cole had never shot above 43 percent from that range before in his career and while he got clean looks I expect the amount of shots to go down as well. It shouldn’t mattter much though if he makes more threes, which I expect him to.

Next: His Defensive Value