Checking in on New Orleans Pelicans’ Anthony Davis post All-Star Break

The New Orleans Pelicans have played five games since the All-Star Break under interim GM Danny Ferry. Let’s take a look at what’s been going on with Anthony Davis during this span.

Between the trade deadline on February 7th and the All-Star Break that started on the 15th, the New Orleans Pelicans and former General Manager Dell Demps did not seem to know what to do with Anthony Davis. Despite earlier belief that Davis’ minutes would be limited moving forward, we still saw occurrences of AD playing 30+ minutes on Night Two of back-to-backs.

However, Dell Demps has obviously been fired since all of this happened, and interim General Manager Danny Ferry doubled down on the claim that Anthony Davis would be heavily limited for the remainder of the year when he took over as GM. Ferry said that Davis would probably only play about 20 minutes tops from now on and would be held out of Night Two of back-to-backs. So how has this been going so far?

Unlike Demps, Ferry has stuck to his word in regards to Anthony Davis. The New Orleans Pelicans have played five games since Ferry took over during the All-Star Break. Davis has only played in four of these contests, because the matchup on the 23rd against the Los Angeles Lakers was the second game of a back-to-back. In the other four examples we’ve seen so far, Davis has played 21 minutes or less in each contest.

To this point, Danny Ferry has stuck to the gameplan of limiting Anthony Davis much more rigidly than Dell Demps did. There’s no reason to risk Davis getting injured before the team trades him away this summer, and winning games the rest of the 2018-2019 season isn’t necessary and will only serve to make the Pelicans’ draft positioning worse.

Davis has also had his desires appeased, because he’s still been able to put up some impressive stat lines over the last week or so. He’s still averaging a very good 18 points and 7.25 rebounds per game despite the significant change in minutes and is shooting a great field goal percentage in the process. At the moment, it’s seems to be a win-win for both the New Orleans Pelicans and Anthony Davis thanks to Danny Ferry sticking to his guns.

The New Orleans Pelicans will play the Denver Nuggets tonight on Game Two of another back-to-back situation. If Ferry continues the trend he’s established since taking over the GM duties, we should be able to assume Anthony Davis will be held out of this matchup as well. As the rest of the season unfolds, keep checking in with Pelican Debrief to keep you updated on the AD Saga along the way.