New Orleans Pelicans: Revisiting the 2016 NBA Draft

The New Orleans Pelicans made their triumphant return back to the lottery in the 2016 NBA Draft after their most successful season in the Davis era the year prior. How would things do down this time around?

You’ll never guess what derailed a potentially successful season for the New Orleans Pelicans. Or maybe you’ve been watching them for a while now and know exactly where I’m going with this. Over the past decade, injuries have just completely riddled this franchise. The 2015/16 season was no different; Davis, Gordon, Holiday, and Evans would miss a combined 132 games.

It’s hard to be successful when your best players miss that much time, and that was reflected in their 30-52 record. For their efforts, they were awarded the 6th overall pick in the 2016 NBA Draft. And with that selection, the Pelicans went with Buddy Hield out of the University of Oklahoma.

Hield played four seasons of collegiate basketball for the Sooners and increased his production with every passing season. In his senior campaign, Hield began to emerge as a household name with his electric style of play. For the season, Hield averaged 25.0 points, 5.7 rebounds, and 2.0 assists on 50.1 percent from the field and connected on an absurd 4.0 three-point field goals a game, where he shot an efficient 45.7 percent.

With a trip to the Final Four in the balance, Hield went off against Oregon, connecting on 8 three-point field goals and backpacking his team to the dance. See this was when all everybody could talk about was the 2015-16 Warriors, understandably so, they were taking the league by force with their backcourt that consisted of two of the greatest shooters in league history.

The three-point revolution had taken off, which kid from college was going to be the next Stephen Curry or Klay Thompson? There were some that believed Buddy Hield was going to be the next great dynamic shooter in the NBA. So when the Pelicans selected him, there was a good deal of hype surrounding the former collegiate standout.

Which ultimately made it all the more crushing when he got off to a slow start to his rookie season. He struggled mightily in the beginning phases of his career, but as time progressed, so did his production.

In the final 25 games of his rookie year, Hield averaged 15.1 points on 48 percent from the field, and 2.4 three-point makes on 42.8 percent from distance. Compare those numbers to his first 57 games, which were 8.6 points on 39.3 percent from the field and 1.6 three-point makes on 36.9 percent from distance—you can see significant increases.

So why did I specifically compare his first 57 games to his last 25? Well, his first 57 were as a member of the Pelicans, his last 25 were with the Sacramento Kings. Plot twist! Hield was traded to Sacramento in a blockbuster deal that sent DeMarcus Cousins to New Orleans. In hindsight, the Kings have a 26-year-old talent that is getting better every year, and the Pelicans no longer have Cousins, so the winner is, well, come on, it’s not the Pelicans.

But at the time, this did seem like a major win for New Orleans. They got to create their own version of the ’86 Rockets twin towers with Cousins and Davis. Cousins put up some monster numbers with the team, but injuries once again derailed what could have been. In fact, he only got to play in 65 games with the team out of a possible 107 after the trade was made.

He would famously leave in the summer of 2018 to Golden State for a veteran’s minimum in an attempt to win a ring (which we now know didn’t quite pan out the way he intended it to). So, in the grand scheme of things, a former lottery pick who’s emerging as a star was sent alongside a future first-round pick for 65 games of DeMarcus Cousins.

It if wasn’t for an untimely injury, maybe we look at this entire situation differently. But once again, things just never aligned in the Anthony Davis era.