Ranking 10 worst starters of the Anthony Davis era

2. Omer Asik – 159 Games Started, -2.5 Box Plus-Minus as a Pelican

A common theme of these rankings is us dinging the Pelicans for fielding two types of player archetypes next to Davis in the starting lineup. The first is the archetype of the center who – thanks to their size and strength – provides some defensive value. However, that defensive value isn’t nearly worth enough to make up for their complete lack of offense.

And arguably no player epitomizes that player type more during the Davis era than Omer Asik. So, why is it that Asik gets the highest ranking of all the no offense centers Davis had the privilege of starting next to?

First, as we’ve been citing for our entire countdown, Asik started the most games during the Davis era. Therefore, he theoretically did the most damage. Second, his BPM was the worst of all of them. As you can see in bold above, Asik had a BPM of -2.5, which is the highest of any player we’ve seen so far outside of Gee.

Third, he didn’t even do the defense part of his job all that well. His DBPM was a -0.8 during his time with the team. That means he was a negative on both offense and defense.

And last, but certainly not least, is the contract. After one season in New Orleans (by far his best with the team), the organization decided it was a good idea to sign him to a 5-year, 58-million-dollar deal in the summer of 2015. To their credit, none of the guys before him on this list was getting paid this much to tank Davis’ chances of winning a title in New Orleans.