New Orleans Pelicans: In Appreciation of Derrick Favors

The man in the middle often gets overlooked when discussing the New Orleans Pelicans this season. His impact on the court should not be forgotten.

When discussing the New Orleans Pelicans, the talk often focuses on a few guys, Zion Williamson, Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball, and Jrue Holiday.

While each of them is incredibly important to the team, we often gloss over Derrick Favors‘ contributions.

There are different reasons for this. Zion, Ingram, and Lonzo are all under 25 with All-Star (at least) potential, Holiday has been with the team since 2013, and Favors has missed a decent chunk of the season.

It’s understandable that Favors’ impact would get lost with that caliber of talent on the roster, but his efforts deserve recognition. His 9.2 points, 9.9 rebounds, 1.7 assists, and 1.0 blocks in 24.2 minutes per game don’t jump off the page, although those numbers don’t paint a full picture of what Favors brings to the table.

When looking at the advanced numbers, you’re able to see what makes Favors so special to this team. By Defensive Win Shares Favors rates as the fifth-best Pelican this season with 1.4 DWS, behind only Lonzo (1.9), Jrue (1.8), Ingram (1.7), and Josh Hart (1.7).

While it may not seem that Favors is that important to the defense if he’s behind three guards and a small forward, but DWS isn’t a rate stat, it’s a cumulative stat. So the time that Favors missed this season (he’s played in 10 fewer games and 500 fewer minutes than anyone rated above him) has short-changed his standing by that metric.

If you look at his Win Shares per 48, or WS per game played, Favors is actually the second-best Pelican with .168, behind only Jaxson Hayes and his .176 (future star?). That shows the impact that centers have on this roster.

While you might be thinking that Favors can’t be that good if he’s behind a rookie by that measure, there is some truth to that, Hayes has more Offensive Win Shares than Favors (2.5 vs 2.4). Favors’ biggest area of impact is on the teams’ defense and when looking at that he comes up just short of the combined DWS of Hayes and Nicolo Melli (2.8 combined) with 2.4.

When Favors was out that pairing usually filled the center minutes for the Pels and the fact that Favors can come close to matching the production of two players on the defensive end should be proof alone of his value.

Here’s a little kicker for Favors impact, Melli and Hayes combine for 1840 minutes played (951 for Hayes, 889 for Melli) that’s 751 more minutes than Favors played this season (he played 1089 min). While some of those minutes came with Favors on the floor, most of those shared minutes belong to Melli as Alvin Gentry wasn’t going to play two centers at the same time.

That fact that Favors can even come close to the combined efforts of two players while missing 19 games (very weird coincidence that Favors missed as many games as Zion played), shows how good he is. If you don’t think that comparing Favors to two rookies is fair, I can understand that.