Analyst suggests Pelicans turn to this killer lineup next season

For some reason, when it comes to lineups, everyone wants to talk about the one that their team starts the game with. And while it is important to make sure that you set the tone early, your starting lineup is only one of many units you trot out during a game/season.

That’s part of what makes the regular season important. It gives you time to experiment with various lineup configurations and see what works best for your team in a given situation. And there are so many situations to figure out. You have your starting five, your start of the second quarter lineup, your late third quarter, your closing five, etc.

The point in all this rambling is to say that you need to have a surplus of potent lineups you can trust to get your team through the portion of the game/season you are trying to conquer.

With this in mind, Esfandiar Baraheni, NBA reporter at SDPN sports, recently proposed (in a great article you should definitely check out) an interesting lineup the New Orleans Pelicans can turn to during transitional/closing situations. Here is his crew:

Lineup: Trey Murphy III, Herb Jones, Brandon Ingram, Zion Williamson, Larry Nance Jr

Before you blow up on Baraheni for suggesting a closing lineup that doesn’t include CJ McCollum, you need to hear his rationale. Baraheni believes that Ingram and Williamson are a star duo (as many of us also believe). And he believes in order to properly harness their powers together, you need the other three guys to be good shooters/defenders.

McCollum is a great shooter (career 39.5% 3-point shooter), but he is a poor defender (25th percentile in Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus, per Dunks & Threes). Ideally, you want Williamson and Ingram to be your worst defenders on the floor. So, it makes way more sense to play Trey Murphy III over him because he combines shooting with defense (52nd percentile in Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus).

Herbert Jones is clearly a worse shooter than McCollum, but when you have Ingram and Williamson on the court, you need someone who can anchor the point of attack. Jones is one of the best perimeter defenders in the league (98th percentile in Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus).

As Baraheni also mentioned, Larry Nance Jr. would also get the nod over McCollum and Jonas Valanciunas as he provides more rim protection and defensive versatility. That latter contribution is a primary reason why we said the Pelicans should think about making him their starting center.

On paper, this group is definitely worth trying in the regular season, even if it doesn’t include one of our leading scorers.