Pelicans: The play that will unlock Brandon Ingram and Zion Williamson

Brandon Ingram and Zion Williamson of the New Orleans Pelicans can be the best offensive duo in the NBA.

Over the last few seasons, the league has started to shift towards bigger playmaking wings initiating their offense and the New Orleans Pelicans need to pay attention.

Having someone who is 6-foot-6 and up running your teams’ offense creates totally different looks for the defense to deal with. At that height, the “point guard” can see over nearly every player defending them and make better reads.

The New Orleans Pelicans have two players that fit this mold and the team should give them more opportunities to use their size. Brandon Ingram and Zion Williamson should be given more responsibility to create offense in the pick-and-roll.

This season in New Orleans Ingram had a 28.1% Usage Rate, good for second on the team. What that doesn’t show is how his assists impact the game, as Usage Rate only tracks a possession that ends in a field-goal attempt, free throw attempt, or turnover.

What that means is that Ingram’s career-high 4.2 assists per game aren’t counted in that Usage Rate. I don’t know if Ingram can ever be a team’s best playmaker but he can be similar to what Gordon Hayward is for Boston; someone who is capable of running the offense for stretches and not making the wrong decisions.

New Orleans Pelicans: Brandon Ingram should be used as point guard

Ingram is a smart passer but doesn’t get much opportunity to show that. According to Cleaning the Glass, BI has an assist rate of 19.2 percent. That mark is good for third on the team but he is in the 93rd percentile of all forwards, putting him ahead of players like Hayward, Aaron Gordon, and Jayson Tatum.

What separates the likes of those players from Ingram is that most of the players near him on that leaderboard score much higher on the Assist-Usage Ratio. Ingram’s 0.68 rate is in the 67th percentile of forwards., The players near him on this stat are Treveon Graham, Rodions Kurucs, and Cedi Osman who are all nowhere near the level of player that Ingram is.

When watching Ingram with the ball he typically gets into a one-on-one matchup with his defender and tries to beat them off the dribble to get to the basket or create space for a shot.

Ingram is a gifted one-on-one player but isolation basketball takes its toll.

One way to help Ingram is to increase the frequency of pick-and-rolls run with him as the ballhandler. Ingram has been the ballhandler in a pick-and-roll just under a quarter of the time (23.3 percent) which is less than Alex Caruso did this season (24.7 percent). No offense to Caruso (ok, some offense) but Ingram should be handling the ball a lot more than a backup.

By just giving him a few more opportunities to use a pick each game that frequency would shoot up and give opponents another thing to keep in their mind when defending New Orleans.

New Orleans Pelicans: Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram can be devasting in the pick-and-roll

The best part is that the Pelicans have an ideal pick-and-roll partner for Ingram in Zion Williamson and a sneaky good option further down the roster. The rookie of the year runner-up has filled highlight reels with layups and dunks as the roll man for the Pels. We’ve already seen that very few players in the league are able to stop Zion when he gets the ball in the paint and starts rumbling towards the basket.

This season Williamson was only used as the roll man 10 percent of the time he’s on the floor. He’s scoring 1.16 points per possession which is a decent rate and places him in the company of Deandre Ayton, Bam Adebayo, and Giannis Antetokounmpo. If New Orleans gives Zion more chances as the roll man, the team will get more easy baskets throughout the games. Zion has already done so much for New Orleans and he’ll be asked to do more next season.

What could really take a BI-Zion pick-and-roll to the next level is Zion’s ability to pass as the roll man. His vision while driving to the basket creates open looks from beyond the arc for his teammates. With Zion being used as the roll man more often this would increase the number of open shots for New Orleans.

Zion is in a similar boat as Ingram when it comes to their Assist-Usage Ratio, he’s above average in getting assists but has a low rating in that department. Now you might be thinking that because Zion is nearly unstoppable when attacking the basket in the paint and his 61.2 percent shooting percentage from within 10 feet certainly reflects how difficult it is for opponents to defend him near the basket.

But 93.7 percent of Zion’s shot attempts have come within 10 feet of the basket, so teams will start to load up even more in the paint to stop his drives. As opponents build a wall to slow Zion as they’ve done to Giannis, he will help the team even more by driving to the basket and kicking the ball out to open shooters.

If the Pelicans elect not to have Zion set screens for Ingram there has been one player who has been sneaky good as the roll man, Jaxson Hayes. It may not be surprising to you that Hayes is a very good roll man considering he seemingly nearly uncorks and game-breaking dunk every game.

The Pelicans have used Hayes pretty frequently as the roll man when he gets minutes, nearly one-third of the time Hayes is involved in the play he finishes the play on the roll (29.5 percent). The results have been pretty transparent, he scores 1.33 points per possession while shooting 66.7 percent from the field and drawing a shooting foul 38.5 percent of the time with a minuscule 4.3 percent turnover percentage.

That drawn foul rate is the highest in the NBA, by having Hayes roll to the rim more often he’ll get opponents into foul trouble more often and that puts the entire Pelicans’ roster in a better position to succeed.

The New Orleans Pelicans need to utilize the pick-and-roll more with Brandon Ingram as the ballhandler to create more open looks for this roster. By doing this the offense will get a boost and give opposing defenses more to worry about throughout the game.