NBA fans love rankings. From jerseys to courts to players, any time things are ranked people read it and Twitter, Facebook and comment sections fill with discussion about the final order. Those reactions are what makes things such as ESPN’s NBA rank so interesting, as it allows fans to see how a select panel of voters (full disclosure here: I am on the panel) rates each and every player in the NBA. So when four members of the New Orleans Pelicans ended up on the bottom 100 players list released on Wednesday, some Pelicans fans were upset.
While the ranking for Alexis Ajinca did seem on the low-end of things, the specific rankings of specific players wasn’t what was the most interesting thing about the rankings or the discussion it brought. Instead it comes back to a very interesting discussion that continuously happens around the Pelicans.
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Just how good is the team around Anthony Davis?
To Pelicans fans, the roster has become an above-average one thanks to the additions of players like Cunningham, Ajinca, Norris Cole and Quincy Pondexter. Yet to many other NBA fans, it isn’t enough as players like Cunningham, Ajinca, Cole and Pondexter just aren’t looked at as that good.
NBA rank is just another example of that.
After all, Alexis Ajinca projects to be the Pelicans seventh man this season and yet he finds himself on the bottom 100 of the rankings, a place no Pelican fan would place him. Because of that, too often Pelicans fans have just outright dismissed ESPN and their rankings, claiming they don’t watch the Pelicans enough to properly assess players. That just isn’t fair.
As stated above, I am on the ESPN rank panel and know how it was chosen. Anyone with a vote in that ranking system absolutely watches a lot of basketball. While they may not watch as many Pelicans games as myself or a Pelicans fan, I am absolutely sure that they have watched a fair amount, enough to give at least a fair assessment on Alexis Ajinca.
Where the disconnect seems to come is in rating the players compared to the rest of the league. After an extended time period watching players like Greg Stiemsma, Darius Miller, John Salmons and Austin Rivers play extended minutes having players like Ajinca, Cunningham, Cole and Pondexter is a gigantic upgrade. That doesn’t mean that those new players are all far above-average NBA players though. After all, upgrading from below NBA level players to below-average NBA level players is still an upgrade. While the Pelicans probably got a bit better players than below-average, the team didn’t necessarily have acquire above-average players to improve like it at times gets made out to be.
Looking around that seems to be the case. Cunningham was a bench player on a few average Timberwolves teams before his false accusation problems. Cole was a bench player on some of the best teams of this era who became virtually unplayable when the Heat lost LeBron James. Pondexter had one good year with the Grizzlies and then got hurt and fell out of favor with the team this year. Ajinca and Luke Babbitt ended up washing out of the NBA and heading to Europe for a bit. While every role player has their faults, the Pelicans are full of parts that didn’t really stick anywhere else. There is clearly something wrong with each.
In reality, the ranking of the Pelicans players is probably somewhere in the middle. Ajinca almost certainly won’t be a bottom 100 player in the NBA this season but it is hard to see him falling somewhere closer to the top 150. Cunningham is honestly probably closer to the bottom than he is to the middle. Same with Cole. But that doesn’t matter for the Pelicans. As long as the team gels together and fits into Alvin Gentry’s system the collective result should be better than the sum of the parts. With Anthony Davis to lead them that may be all the Pelicans need.
But that doesn’t make the NBA rank panel clearly wrong just like the Pelicans under performing this season won’t make them clearly right. It just adds another layer to the discussion surrounding the Pelicans players.
Only time will tell what the real case is.
Next: The Player Rankings Also Hurt the Pelicans in the Future Power Rankings on ESPN
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