New Orleans Pelicans: 3 Players Who May Have Played Final Game with Pels
Derrick Favors, Center
Derrick Favors is another player that the New Orleans Pelicans may simply have to let walk in free agency.
Favors has been valuable for the Pelicans, is the anchor of their interior defense and is the type of no-nonsense veteran leader that all young teams need.
The problem is that they won’t be able to afford him and the team is moving towards a type of basketball that doesn’t have much use for a guy like Favors.
Favors is certainly the team’s best interior defender, shot blocker and rebounder, but he is limited offensively, can’t stretch the floor and often clogs the lane, making it harder for Zion to go to work.
The New Orleans Pelicans already take a lot of 3-pointers, play at a lightning pace and have major deficiencies on defense, even with Favors, but if anything, the Pelicans want to play even faster in the future.
Favors is not in the top-five lineups for the Pelicans in terms of pace and the future will likely see a lot of Zion as a small-ball five.
Favors is matchup-dependent, doesn’t play big minutes and the New Orleans Pelicans are a lot faster when he is not on the floor.
Add that to the fact that Favors is making $17.65 million this season, and it’s easy to see why the Pelicans will probably let him walk.
Favors is still only 28, and the 2020 free agent crop is weak, so he might find a team willing to offer him one last big contract, but that team will not be the New Orleans Pelicans.
His style of play and salary make him a poor fit for the Pels moving forward, so if the season does not resume, then we’ve seen the last of Favors in a Pelicans’ uniform.
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This is undoubtedly the craziest NBA season on record. With so many things in flux, it is still too early to know how the NBA is going to look in the post-coronavirus world.
This season will always be remembered as the pre-and-post outbreak and there will undoubtedly be storylines and ripple effects that we can’t predict.
We’ll continue to provide coverage of the New Orleans Pelicans during the hiatus, so check back for more great content.
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