The recent spate of injuries has allowed the Pelicans to give more playing time to guys further down the bench. The question is, are any of them keepers?
The Pelicans were one of the healthier teams going into the All-Star break, which was one of the main reasons the season had been so frustrating. The roster clearly had talented players on it but they just weren’t closing games. Since the break, that’s been a different story entirely.
Eric Bledsoe is the only Pelican to play in all 33 games after the break. In fact, only two other guys have even reached 30: Jaxson Hayes and Kira Lewis Jr.
Zion Williamson, Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball, Steven Adams, Josh Hart, and Nickeil Alexander-Walker have all missed decent chunks of time during the last roughly two-month stretch. Missing six of your main rotation players is never a good thing, especially when multiple players miss the same game. The silver lining around this injury-laden grey cloud is that the Pelicans may have found a few guys during this time who can contribute in a real way next season.
New Orleans Pelicans: The rise of Naji Marshall
The player with the greatest on-court impact so far has been Naji Marshall. The undrafted rookie has quickly become a fan favorite by bringing effort and intensity into each game. Marshall has a game very similar to Josh Hart and he has been able to slide into that role nicely since Hart got hurt.
The most important thing Marshall has brought to this team is his ability to defend both wings and forwards. At 6-foot-7 and 220 pounds, Marshall is 30 pounds heavier than Ingram while being about the same height. This allows head coach Stan Van Gundy to move Ingram or Zion off the tougher defensive assignments and focus more of their effort on offense.
The sample size may be small and defensive stats are hard to measure but Marshall’s performance on defense has already been noticeable. He has a team-high 1.1 defensive box-plus-minus (basically how much better a player is than average over 100 possessions), despite being seventh in minutes for this team. Marshall and Hart could be a menacing duo for opposing offenses off the bench next season, assuming Hart stays this off-season.