Ranking 10 worst starters of the Anthony Davis era
By Mat Issa
1. Solomon Hill – 87 Games Started, -3.0 Box Plus-Minus as a Pelican
The other type of archetype we’ve been penalizing the most severely is the no-way wings/forwards that New Orleans had the inclination toward starting, and in Solomon Hill’s case, offering large chunks of cash to (more on that in just a second).
We can’t fully say that Hill was a no-way forward. In his three seasons with New Orleans, his DBPM was a 0.5. How much of that was influenced by him playing next to a defensive anchor in Davis? Probably a ton. But at the end of the day, he was still a positive there.
What killed the team was his offense. He may have been a positive on defense, but his offense was so bad (-3.5 OBPM) that it led to him having, by far and away, the worst overall BPM of any of the players on this list (-3.0 BPM).
This is especially damaging because the Pelicans needed their non-bigs to carry the load for them on offense since they were sacrificing offense at the center position to field more defense. On top of that, since Hill isn’t a center, he inherently can’t provide as much defensive punch as guys like Asik, Ajinca, and Smith.
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On top of that, there is the contract. New Orleans snagged Hill from the Indiana Pacers in free agency by offering him a 4-year, 52-million-dollar deal. That’s an even higher annual rate than Asik. And it came during the dreaded summer of 2016 (the summer where seemingly every team handed out abhorrent contracts), so it hurts even more.