New Orleans Pelicans Center Alexis Ajinca has become a one-dimensional offensive weapon, similar to the character Reaper from the recently released game Overwatch.
It’s not all advanced stats and critiques of the front office here at Pelican Debrief. Nope. We can have fun, too. Pelicans Pixels is a series in which the writers at Pelican Debrief make a humorous comparison between a video character and a Pelicans players. Why did we do this? No particular reason; we’re just big kids at heart. We hope you enjoy reading Pelicans Pixels as much as we enjoyed writing the series.
The New Orleans Pelicans’ most productive center this season was surprisingly Alexis Ajinca. His offensive numbers and consistent scoring made him a better fit for the Pelicans plan of attack than Omer Asik.
Still, the downside of Alexis Ajinca continues to be his one-dimensional play. Other than his scoring, it’s really tough to find much he brings to the table. His rebounding is about par for a big, yet his defense and efficiency in the offense without the ball is poor at best.
He’s a player who needs the ball close range and the freedom to fire at will. Speaking of which, there’s a character in a brand new video game that fits Ajinca to a tee. Reaper.
Reaper is one of the characters in the new game, Overwatch. It’s a first-person multiplayer shooting game that is based on “teamwork”, with each heroes strengths and weaknesses balancing the team out. The most successful teams on the game know how to use this balance to their advantage to create the best roster. One of those “heroes” is Reaper.
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Reaper is a black-robbed shotgun user, whose motives are unknown in the game. His story is not of great importance to this comparison though, more so his abilities. Just like Ajinca, Reaper is only known for his close range combat.
His abilities give him great strengths one-on-one against weaker or slower heroes. His shotguns do massive damage when he’s close to another enemy and fire for quite some time before reloading. Just like Alexis, Reaper loves the close-range combat and wearing down his enemies with shot after shot.
However, his abilities past that are non-existent. Reaper has a very weak defense, making it tough to use him against a healthy number of opposing teammates. He’s more of a flanking hero who attacks when you least expect him. Which, oddly enough, is a sneaky way to describe Ajinca’s success.
When he’s been on the court in the past two seasons, many teams have focused on other stars for the New Orleans Pelicans. However, Ajinca has found quite the rhythm on this team for scoring chunks of buckets when least expected. He’s sneaky dangerous.
In the game against the Los Angeles Lakers late in this past season, Ajinca put up 28 points on 12-17 shooting out of nowhere. A team like the Lakers who were not prepared for his close-range onslaught and were taught a tough lesson.
For both players, there’s only one point of strength. Close-range offense. And they’re both excellent at that. When they are given the freedom to roam around with no focus on them, a great deal of damage can be dealt to the opposing team. However if the focus is on them, it’s tough for either to make a major difference in their respective games.
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Neither Alexis Ajinca of the New Orleans Pelicans or Reaper of Overwatch will blow the roof off alone. Still, the right strategy with their sneaky offensive abilities can make them dangerous foes for anyone. It’s not so much that Alexis Ajinca is useless, more so that he needs a great system around him to become that close-range assassin Reaper has become so popular for in Overwatch. It might be weird for New Orleans Pelicans fans to hear, but for Alexis Ajinca to succeed, it might be time to find the path to give him the guns and let him fire away at the competition.