New Orleans Pelicans: How Lonzo Ball and Eric Bledsoe are killing the Pels

The New Orleans Pelicans are getting killed by their own starting backcourt of Lonzo Ball and Eric Bledsoe.

The pair had another abysmal night against the Utah Jazz, scoring 22 points on 27 shots, committing five turnovers and converting only 2-of-9 from 3-point range.

Meanwhile, the Utah Jazz backcourt of Donovan Mitchell and Mike Conley poured in 56 points on 33 shots, including 8-of-13 from behind the arc.

The Utah Jazz are playing extremely well right now, so part of it is just that they are very good.  Unfortunately, these types of games aren’t only happening against Utah.

The New Orleans Pelicans’ starting backcourt has been flat awful all season and is a big reason that the Pelicans have started off 5-9.

But how exactly have they been bad? Let’s look at the numbers.

New Orleans Pelicans: Where do Lonzo Ball and Eric Bledsoe rank as a backcourt?

Let’s start with the big picture numbers. Lonzo Ball is averaging 12.1 points per game which is a career-high. However, he is doing it on 38 percent shooting, which is the lowest since his rookie season.

Eric Bledsoe is scoring 11.6 per game, which is the lowest of his career since 2012-13 when he was just in his 3rd season in the league.

Lonzo’s scoring puts him 25th in the NBA among point guards, while Bledsoe ranks 27th in scoring among shooting guards.

New Orleans Pelicans: Where do Lonzo and Bledsoe rank in assists and turnovers?

Not every backcourt has to be high scoring, though the NBA has been a guard-driven league for some time now.

But they have to do something else, so surely Lonzo Ball and Eric Bledsoe rack up the assists and take care of the ball, right?

Nope.

Lonzo Ball’s 4.5 assists are the lowest of his career by far and put him 23rd in the NBA in assists for point guards. To give you an idea of how little he is passing the ball, he is just behind Derrick Rose on the list. Rose is a shoot first ball hog who gets most of his assists by accident.

Part of this is his new role under Stan Van Gundy but part of it is that Lonzo Ball has not been aggressive and mostly just stands around the 3-point line.

Bledsoe’s 3.6 assists (second-lowest of his career) put him 15th overall in assists for shooting guards.

They aren’t passing much but still average 4.6 turnovers between them. Lonzo Ball is 43rd in turnovers among point guards while Eric Bledsoe ranks 66th for shooting guards. Awful.

Lonzo is 17th in steals among point guards while Bledsoe is the 24th ranked shooting guard, so their defense hasn’t exactly been stellar either.

Any way you look at it, Lonzo Ball and Eric Bledsoe have been one of the worst starting backcourts in the NBA and are big reasons why this season has started the way it has.

They both need to get going if the New Orleans Pelicans are going to pull themselves out of this early hole.