New Orleans Pelicans: 3 reasons to keep Wenyen Gabriel
The New Orleans Pelicans have one more roster decision to make this offseason.
They already have 15 contracts plus their two-ways filled, so the Pels are at the maximum number of players.
The only guy who isn’t guaranteed is power forward Wenyen Gabriel, who played sparingly last season mostly towards the end.
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Keeping or Gabriel or letting him walk probably isn’t going to have a huge impact on the Pels’ season either way, but I do think there are some reasons to being him back.
New Orleans Pelicans: Wenyen Gabriel provides cheap depth and upside
Wenyen Gabriel is only due $1.76 million next season if the Pelicans decide to pick up his option.
That is about as cheap as it gets for an NBA player, even one that isn’t expected to be part of the regular rotation. If the Pelicans wanted to open up a roster spot they could always cut him later in the season or add him as part of a trade without losing much.
The Pelicans are also pretty thin at power forward behind Zion Williamson. Next season’s Pelicans will be more of a position-less team, so I expect we’ll see a number of players technically playing “power forward” including Naji Marshall, Trey Murphy III, Jaxson Hayes and maybe even Herbert Jones.
But none of those guys are really power forwards. Gabriel has the size to play the position and is a rim runner who can block shots, so he’s got a different skillset than any of those other guys and might be useful in certain matchups.
Gabriel also showed that he has a chance to be more. He shot 40 percent from 3-point range on a low number of attempts and had some good games down the stretch shooting the ball.
He hit 2-of-3 against the Clippers, 3-of-5 vs. Philly and 3-of-7 against the Warriors late in the season. This is obviously a tiny sample size, but if Gabriel can hit 3-point shots then his ceiling may be much higher than just an energy guy who plays defense and runs the floor.
That potential is worth taking a risk on, especially when it is not really going to hurt the New Orleans Pelicans either way.
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