Nathan (@Nathanheck22): With the news of Tyreke’s surgery, we need to begin to ask ourselves as to just where the ceiling for the current incarnation of the New Orleans Pelicans actually is. Even if the team has title contender potential when healthy (which I’m not sold on), health is a major aspect of sports and is something that cannot be ignored.
We’re moving past the “Pelicans have bad injury luck” grace period and into the “Pelicans have way too many injury prone players” reality. Is it possibly a combination of poor durability and the training staff? I’m not sure. Regardless, I think it is time for Pelicans to move some serious pieces around and retool. A full-blown rebuild is out of the question with Anthony Davis on the roster, but I’m starting to think this core’s ceiling is the first round. It’s a shame to think I feel that way because of health.
Rick (@RickstoneNBA): The worry for me isn’t the idea of doing it, but more so the process. The ceiling on this team is limited. I don’t see an argument there. Anthony Davis might be the best player on the planet and this supporting crew is not enough. And sure, you would think many people would be down for sending away guys that have issues with injuries year after year. Jrue Holiday, Ryan Anderson, Eric Gordon and Tyreke Evans have had the biggest issues and would be the most likely to be dealt. The issue is we’ve seen trade value for high quality players go down so much recently. A player that netted a first-round pick is now only getting a few second-rounders. The second issue then comes up with who would even take these players in a trade?
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Let’s start with Jrue Holiday. He’s obviously going to get some takers, but there’s a lot of criticism to be had if the trade does not come close to the amount the team traded away to get him. If we know anything about Dell Demps, when he sets off on a project, he is very resilient to give up on it. Tag along the fact that point guard is the deepest position in the NBA at the current moment and about 70% of NBA teams have their long-term point guard already set. Eric Gordon’s been dangled for years and the Pelicans still haven’t gotten an offer worth it. And he’s the one player that’s actually improved significantly to the level where the team might consider keeping him. He’s starting to find his rhythm with this team and he’s an expiring contract, meaning if the team wants to keep an improving player who my have finally found mojo, they’ll have to give up their cap space going forward they wasted on major deals for Omer Asik and Alexis Ajinca.
Ryan Anderson is the only guy they could get value from, which at best would be a first-round pick or a role-player of some kind they can fill in. He’ll get value but alone it won’t be enough for the team going forward to make major pushes.
Then there’s Tyreke Evans. His value is so weird to gauge as far as trade value. However, I’m not so certain he is going to have many teams going after him if he becomes available. Again, point is the deepest position in the league, and if we’ve learned anything about Tyreke Evans, it’s that he needs to be running the offense for him to be at his best. He needs the ball in his hands. There’s not a lot of teams out there that lack that kind of player on their bench. And even if they do, they’re not going to give up a ton to get him when there’s so many capable guards that can come off the bench in that kind of role.
The other option here is to wait this year out and see what they can do at the end of the season. That seems harsh with the best player on the team, however you already have a new coach starting the year with one of the toughest schedules in the league leading a team that’s more banged up than the Tune Squad after the Monstars decided to beat them up in Space Jam. He’s leading a team into the hardest opening schedule in the league with a squad that has 4 healthy regular role players. Making major trades isn’t going to change how that is going to go….not well. What the team can do is spend this year to gauge how their pieces fit into Gentry’s system and in next year’s offseason start the process of deciding if EG is right for the team and if you can make deals with Ryan Anderson, Jrue Holiday and perhaps one of the bigs if they don’t fit the team.
I’m not contested to the idea of making moves going forward, but it’s a little too early to be making major jumps without even seeing how some of these players fit into the system. And quite honestly, this to me is so much more on changing the training staff than the players. This isn’t like one or two players having chronic issues. This is nearly the entire team. Even Anthony Davis has had injury-itis over his time on the team. Yes, the ceiling is not super high with the current roster. Sure, moves probably need to be made to make this team a contender. Just not sure if this is the time to be asking those questions or if this year is just supposed to be like test driving a car and seeing what parts need to be changed for it to ride smoothly.
Brendon (@zimmeryguy4): I still feel like it’s nearly impossible to attempt anything drastic unless the team misses the playoffs this year. That said, it’s now to the point where it’s starting to become about more than basketball. These are players that never really had injury problems before arriving in New Orleans. Evans was an exciting young athlete entering his prime when he came in, and two years of surgeries have left him as another question mark. Omer Asik has banged around in the upper echelons of both conferences for his whole career and now finds himself unable to play through a rough early schedule for the first team he has ever shown real allegiance to. Jrue Holiday has become one of the true sore spots around the league, a well-liked player incapable of staying healthy.
There isn’t a logical path toward a quick rebuild. Complete upheavals never solves any more problems than they end up causing, and this team gave up real team-building capital in player acquisition. Asik and Holiday cost a combined three first-rounders. Tyreke and Gordon are on pretty big deals, and the team has no young talent to speak of. Even finding spare pieces like Quincy Pondexter and Norris Cole has cost the Pelicans assets. Teams planning on staying competitive during a rebuild generally have young players waiting on the fringes of the rotation to take the place of guys they shop. That option simply does not exist for this franchise.
Aside from injuries, everything that has happened over the past year has given me hope for progress this season. Gordon has developed as a shooter, Ryan Anderson came alive in the playoffs as the team needed him to, an Asik-Davis front court worked just well enough, and Reke has teetered a little further from the edge than he normally does. The front office nailed the Gentry and Erman hires, and Anthony Davis has continued his ascension toward super-duper-duper stardom. If the pieces can fit for just long enough, and stay on the right side of health luck, this team really does strike me as legitimately competitive, even in the West. And no one expects the Pelicans to make the Conference Finals this year. That’s not part of the plan; it’s all about earning respect and success in hopes of nailing a future free agent or creating chemistry that makes the whole better than the sum of its parts. And I do think that this incarnation of the team is capable of making a healthy, late season run to charge into the seven-seed at full strength.
Nathan: Rick, I agree the ceiling is not even really up for debate, but, as the great poet Kanye West put it, admitting is the first step. I would not be surprised if Dell Demps believes he has built a championship contender in New Orleans. If not, how can he justify to himself spending such a large portion of the cap this summer on role players down the pecking order? Demps has to admit his mistakes, take his lumps and try to lead the team out of the darkness, otherwise, next year will only be worse. The best thing the Pelicans can do this season, especially if they flounder early and take themselves out of the playoff picture in the hyper-competitive West, is to set themselves up with some flexibility for free agency and draft day moves, and that is why I think the idea is viable.
FanSided
Receiving equal value for almost any of the pieces is probably out of the question. If they start making trades, the Pelicans are writing the season off and chalking it up to development within the scheme. Ryan Anderson is the easiest choice to me because his contract is expiring and he doesn’t fit. The stretch 4 is a hot commodity, and Anderson is one of the best. Thinking other teams won’t back the armored truck up to his house in free agency after they miss on the real stars is a fool’s notion. The Pelicans have absolutely no business getting involved in any sort of bidding war for a player that plays the same position as their transcendent star. If the Pelicans can get any sort of pick compensation or rotation piece, I’d call it a win. Eric Gordon is a similar situation. The likelihood of him resigning with the Pelicans is slim, so moving him for almost anything is acceptable if the Pelicans don’t appear to be making a playoff push.
A sneaky valuable trade chip is Alexis Ajinca. He is a long and offensively gifted big man on an extremely team friendly contract. His value could be fairly high for a team that loses a starting big to injury or needs to bolster depth for a late postseason run. I would think requiring talent, not just picks, would be a requirement to move Ajinca, though. Getting out from Holiday’s contract is the best case scenario in that situation, and the Pelicans really can’t expect any return on that asset. I promised myself I wouldn’t mention the Holiday trade in this thread, but wow, that still hurts.
With all that being said, I noticed we all are starting to place substantial blame on the training staff, and rightfully so. Would Holiday have returned to All-Star form by now if his injury had been handled differently? Is the organization putting their future (Anthony Davis) at risk with this staff? These are not questions we are supposed to be asking.
Austin (@apete1993): There are so m any complicating factors to this discussion. The ownership has a goal in mind (make the playoffs) and they’re going to do everything they can to do it. If you have Anthony Davis on your team, I don’t care if Sean Kilpatrick and Dante Cunningham are playing 30 minutes a game you’re going to make the playoffs. Davis is that good. To be a title contender, that’s a whole new discussion that probably would require some change to the roster.
Here is the issue with that: in my personal opinion, Anthony Davis is the best player in the NBA. Right now. You should be doing everything you can to make that guy happy. One ramification that has the potential come of changing everything up is upsetting him and making him frustrated with how long the process to contention is. It isn’t a good idea to ever speculate on a player’s mood, and Davis has been an outstanding dude ever since he was drafted. Crazier things have happened, though, and if he isn’t happy, then we have a Dwight Howard situation all over again.
The best way to do this would be to trade away future draft picks for players, but this team has done that recently in the past and it hasn’t worked out well. The best way to build depth is to draft and develop young players and without draft picks, you can’t do that, This Pelicans team is painfully thin, which is a side effect of that.
I guess the conclusion I’m coming to, and the stance I’ve maintained throughout this whole debate, is to keep this team together and see what happens. Worst case scenario: Pelicans get the 7th seed, lose to a team in the first round, and Anderson/Gordon leave. You aren’t going to fetch much for those guys in a trade anyway, so them leaving for nothing isn’t awful. Keep them around for depth and to help reach your goal this year.
Jrue and Tyreke are both different stories obviously because they have a few years left on their deals. With them both being injury prone, you won’t be able to fetch much for them, in fact, you’d probably have to attach something to give them up. In that sense, there is no reason to trade them.
The only best case type of deal that I can think of is offering Jrue or Tyreke to Phoenix along with a first round pick for Eric Bledsoe. He would be perfect with New Orleans, Phoenix would grab another asset, and they would have a workable point guard around with the best training staff in the league to help get either them back to 100%. That’s the type of move that New Orleans would have to make if they are looking to upgrade in any way.
Rick: The biggest piece to any of this happening or even having any sort of success is the guy who put the team in this position in the first place: Dell Demps. As Nathan put it, he has to admit that his moves were not exactly the most successful before any change can be made. Case in point, don’t expect any change to be made ANY time soon. Demps has made some good moves for this team don’t get me wrong. Getting Ryan Anderson in the trade he was able to swindle with Orlando was, well, “magic”. He’s had some great moments. But some of his biggest mistakes have been sticking to pieces that don’t really fit the momentum of the team. He has been very well-known for not giving up on the projects he takes on for the team. Luke Babbitt and Alexis Ajinca have become much better basketball players than they were when they came in to the league. Both could have been let go for better options and yet both are still on the team. Omer Asik was a decent fill-in at the center position, but his lack of fit with the high athletic style of Anthony Davis left a lot to be desired. Yet Demps insisted on re-signing Asik to a massive deal that left nearly every NBA analyst baffled.
There’s obviously many questions to lay out with a team that has not played a game yet and a lot of uncertainty how the first year goes, but I just don’t see any reason why Demps would jump his ship when he has yet to do it in the history of him being the GM.
Nathan: At the end of the day, we’ve yet to see this team play a single real game of basketball this season. We should all have a better idea where the team stands in a few months. Currently, though, it doesn’t look pretty. Demps has put together a team that really can only improve internally, but the ceiling doesn’t seem to be there to make the leap into contention because of both the talent level and a never-ending list of injuries. Here’s to hoping we’re wrong and that this team surprises us all once again.
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