New Orleans Pelicans: How Team Additions Impact Stretch Run

How roster additions affect the New Orleans Pelicans

Corey Brewer, Sacramento Kings

Brewer and the Kings have some familiarity with the Rest of the Season contracts. Just last season the two parties agreed to the same thing. By bringing in Brewer, the Kings have another veteran player to help guide a mostly young roster.

Unless a few players on the roster get hurt, Brewer is not very likely to see any game action, since he hadn’t played a single game during the 2019-20 season before agreeing to join Sacramento. in 24 games with the Kings at the end of last season, Brewer played 14.7 minutes while averaging 4.1 points, 2.5 rebounds, and 1.2 assists.

Those numbers aren’t bad for an end of the rotation player, but the Kings already have multiple players who can fill that role for the iteration of the team. Look for Brewer to be almost like an assistant coach for this team, helping the young guards with their defensive positioning during breaks.

Anthony Tolliver, Memphis Grizzlies

The roster spot was open for Brewer because the Kings waived Tolliver on leap day 2020 (Feb 29), just a couple days later Tolliver joined Memphis on a 10-day contract that ran out just when the league was suspended. The Rest of the Season deal that the two sides agreed upon was probably happening anyway as the Grizzlies were without key frontcourt players at the time.

By bringing Tolliver back, the Grizzlies have another player who’s familiar with their system and can fill in if anyone were to get hurt. While he only played five games with Memphis, his average stat line in those games was better than it was during the rest of the season.

His 5.4 points and 2.4 rebounds may not seem like much but he was shooting 41.2% from three-point range in Memphis, the extra space his shooting provides creates driving room for Ja Morant to attack the basket. It also means that Tolliver can play next to any of the team’s other frontcourt players (Jonas Valanciunas, Jaren Jackson Jr, Brandon Clarke, or Kyle Anderson).

With games against both the Grizzlies and Kings, the New Orleans Pelicans are hoping that additions of guys like Darius Miller will offset any advantages that might have been gained.

This is the strangest NBA season on record, so while it’s unlikely any of these additions make a big impact, it wouldn’t be surprising if a COVID-fill-in ended up being important.