Not even Boogie Cousins can save the Pelicans from their general manager’s mistakes

There is no question that the New Orleans Pelicans made an excellent trade to acquire DeMarcus Cousins from the Sacramento Kings in February. Cousins has been every bit as good as advertised, even while sharing the ball and spotlight with superstar teammate Anthony Davis. The Pelicans gave up Buddy Hield and a draft pick in that deal: Hield has improved in a more suitable environment and the pick became Justin Jackson and Harry Giles, but New Orleans would do that deal again in a heartbeat.

The question is not whether the Cousins trade was a good one. All evidence suggests that it was. The question is whether the Pelicans were in too deep a hole for the Cousins trade to allow them to recover.

The early evidence suggests that they were.

This is the song of Dell Demps: He is a general manager capable of pulling the DeMarcus Cousins trade out of thin air, yet he is also the one who got the Pelicans into such an incredible mess that the Cousins trade was less a moment of reckoning and fear for the NBA than a last-ditch effort to rescue the Anthony Davis era in New Orleans.

Instead of a triumphant victory that put the Pelicans into championship conversations, the Boogie coup has highlighted the remarkable flaws in Demps’ seven-year team-building project.

First, let’s run through the evidence that the Cousins trade has itself been a success. In 2016-17, after the trade, lineups featuring both Cousins and Davis were +41 in 394 minutes, or roughly +5 per 48 minutes. In Davis’ other 1,795 minutes last season, the Pelicans were +10, which works out to +0.25 per 48 minutes.

Through seven games this season, the Pelicans are +44 in 147 minutes Cousins and Davis have shared on the floor. In 55 minutes with Davis on the floor and Cousins off, the Pelicans are -38. In 113 minutes with Cousins on the floor and Davis off, the Pelicans are -3. In the 21 minutes with neither on the floor, the Pelicans are -12.

In other words, the Pelicans are +14 per 48 minutes — something like a 60-win team — with Cousins and Davis on the floor together. They’re a -13 per 48 minutes — something like a 20-win team — when one or both sits.

This is a failure of team-building.

Jrue Holiday matters to this conversation, as the lead point guard often plays with both bigs and only sometimes when just one of them is on the court. Obviously, the starting lineup is suited to making the Boogie-Brow duo shine. The bench units — including those which feature just one of the pair — suffer. Head coach Alvin Gentry has been good at staggering rest for Davis and Cousins; it just hasn’t mattered much. When one of them sits, the team — which has been smashing opposing starting lineups — folds.

Demps didn’t do much in free agency before this season because he couldn’t. He’d hamstrung himself over the years with bad deals and poor draft picks. In 2014, Demps traded a draft pick for Omer Asik, a lumbering relic with no place in the modern NBA. He compounded the mistake by giving Asik an enormous contract in free agency. Asik hasn’t seen a second of action this season. That same summer of 2015, Demps gave Alexis Ajinca — another center who isn’t fit for today’s NBA — a sizeable deal.

These centers aren’t just limiting New Orleans’ cap space. They are taking up valuable roster spots since the Pelicans are unwilling to cut bait and pay them to go away. Demps won the Jameer Nelson sweepstakes after Denver cut him loose. But to sign Nelson (a necessity with Rajon Rondo injured), the Pels had to waive a useful Jordan Crawford — all because Asik and Ajinca were taking up roster spots.

The draft might as well not even exist for New Orleans. Demps has been around for seven drafts. Only two first-round picks in that time played at least one full season for the Pelicans: Anthony Davis and Austin Rivers. Only Davis finished out his rookie deal in New Orleans. Nerlens Noel was traded in the Jrue Holiday deal on draft day; Hield went out in the Cousins swap. Consider this: Demps’ Pelicans has traded the team’s 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 first-round picks for Holiday, Asik, and Cousins.

Adding to this pile of problems, Demps has failed to pull in any second-round draft gems.

As evidenced by Asik and Ajinca, Demps hasn’t fared much better in free agency. Spending big on Tyreke Evans in 2013 didn’t work out, and the Solomon Hill deal in 2016 was a classic reach that limited New Orleans in 2017. Rondo and Tony Allen received modest deals this summer — under the gun to re-up Holiday, all the Pels could offer were modest deals — that can’t hurt. But the fact that neither can shoot from distance poses spectacular fit issues. Somehow, the latest Demps pick-up — Josh Smith — seems unlikely to resolve that problem.

What exactly has Demps done right in New Orleans?

He drafted Davis and traded for Cousins. The Jrue Holiday trade worked out pretty well, in part because Nerlens Noel remains a walking question mark. Everything else Demps has done has been a complete mess.

Now we are learning that the few huge roster victories can’t paper over the parade of failures. Unless the Pelicans figure out a way to survive those essential minutes when Boogie and the Brow aren’t on the court together, Demps dug himself a hole too deep to climb out of.