The New Orleans Pelicans did some questionable things this offseason, like giving up the rights to their first-round pick next season on draft night to acquire Derik Queen. Or like drafting Jeremiah Fears the day after trading for Jordan Poole. And even in some people's eyes, not trading Zion Williamson away was a bonehead decision. However, one move that I will continue to defend no matter how hard it gets, slander is the CJ McCollum Jordan Poole swap.
Poole has not always been someone I've been a fan of. During his time with the Golden State Warriors, I always thought he was a lackluster defender, who was also incredibly inefficient and would never ever be someone who could impact winning in a large role. Despite these thoughts I had about Poole, one thing I never took away from him is his ability to create his own shot.
Over time, I grew to like Poole after seeing how instrumental he was during the 2022 championship with the Warriors. I started to see that he really could be impactful on a winning team. Poole is now bringing a winning mentality, but more importantly, he solves one of this team's most significant flaws: shot creation.
This is going to help take the Pelicans' offense to a whole new level
Over the course of the Zion Williamson era, there's never really been an elite shot creator playing alongside him. Sure, when New Orleans acquired CJ McCollum, he was still a good creator, but not to the level Jordan Poole currently is. Having someone with the ability to create space in a phone booth will allow Willie Green and James Borrego to get extremely creative when creating the offensive scheme for this season.
Being able to fall back on Poole's late shot clock when a play blows up is going to help this team generate points in situations they haven't in years past. On top of that, he should have had incredible growth as a three-point shooter last season, shooting 9.1 three-pointers per game on a 37.8% clip. This type of efficiency from range is also something the Pelicans have been missing, as they were a bottom-five team shooting the three-ball last season.
His ability as a shot creator is going to open up the game for both of the Pelicans' elite wings, Herb Jones and Trey Murphy. With Poole being able to create his shot and get a bucket from virtually anywhere on the court, it is going to force defenders to help off of their man and lead to open looks from the corner or the wing.
People underestimate how big of an impact adding shot creation is going to have on the Pelicans' win total next season.