The New Orleans Pelicans have been up and down since acquiring CJ McCollum just before the trade deadline.
They gave up two rotation players in the deal and only took one back, so Willie Green has been struggling to find the right combinations, especially off the bench where the Pels have some depth issues.
Coach Green made a change to the starting lineup last night against Dallas that somewhat worked, but also caused a ripple effect on the rest of the rotation.
The effects of moving Jaxson Hayes to the Pelicans’ starting lineup
I really like the starting lineup with Jaxson Hayes at the four, as it creates some potential mismatches and makes the Pelicans long and athletic on defense.
But it does create some problems, particularly for the guard rotation.
Moving Devonte’ Graham to the bench makes it very difficult to play Jose Alvarado much, as the two are too small to be in there together.
Alvarado didn’t get into the game last night, with coach Green choosing to go with Tony Snell, Garrett Temple and Graham as his primary bench options.
Because of his reluctance to play Graham and Alvarado together, we instead got 18 minutes of Garrett Temple in which he racked up a team-worst -23 plus minus.
Playing Temple big minutes off the bench is not sustainable, but playing Graham and Alvarado together may not be either.
It’s become clear already that the Pelicans are going to have to make some changes in the offseason, as they will have another undersized guard in Kira Lewis Jr. to try and work back into the rotation, which isn’t going to work with Graham and Alvarado already on the roster.
We knew there would be some growing pains when the Pelicans traded for CJ McCollum, and even though he has played well, losing two big guards has caused some issues in the rotation that coach Green is going to have to figure out.