Judging Dell Demps’ performance as Pelicans’ GM is impossible

Judging the competence of those running the New Orleans Pelicans is a fraught exercise. This is not a normal NBA franchise in a normal NBA market with normal lines of history, a normal ownership situation, or a normal outlook.

Dell Demps, who was fired as general manager of the Pelicans after eight seasons on Friday, was never in a normal situation. He was hired by George Shinn, a franchisee going broke. Early in Demps’ tenure, there were legitimate fears around the league that the then-Hornets wouldn’t be able to make payroll. Those were tough times throughout the NBA, owing to the Great Recession. This was also before a franchise-friendly labor deal in 2011 and the explosion of T.V. revenue in 2016.

Things were so bad in New Orleans that then-commissioner David Stern convinced himself and the other 29 NBA franchisees to collectively bail out the disliked and dislikable Shinn, purchase the team and let Stern act as the steward until a new ownership group could be found. Stern declared that he would let those already in charge of the franchise — including Demps — run the team.

But according to multiple reports over the multiple years the NBA controlled the franchise, Stern found the pull of power irresistible.

Stern famously vetoed the first Chris Paul trade Demps put together, funnily enough with the Lakers. The team ended up trading Paul for a package centered around Eric Gordon, a player Stern touted as someone New Orleans could build around (unlike the veterans that Demps had tried to acquire.) Another Stern step-in most people have forgotten? He reportedly prevented Demps from offering Gordon an early extension in the fall of 2011. Gordon’s agent at the time: Rob Pelinka, who is now the general manager of the Lakers. (It’s a small world.) That following summer of 2012, Pelinka orchestrated an enormous offer sheet from the Suns — $58 million over four years — that Demps and Stern felt obligated to match.

For comparison’s sake: the summer Gordon signed that deal, the Warriors got the better, healthier Stephen Curry to sign an early extension for $44 million over four years. New Orleans botched that critical deal because David Stern was tying Dell Demps’ hands.

Within a couple years, Stern had convinced the NFL’s Saints to essentially absorb the now-Pelicans into their project. Stern gave Tom Benson a sweetheart deal after blocking out-of-towners from making bids just as NBA franchise values were beginning to explode. But New Orleans was a challenged market in the best of days due to certain revenue and facility deficiencies; population in the city is still recovering from the tragic blow of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.

The NBA saved pro basketball in New Orleans, and also saddled it with years of instability owing to Stern’s reign and Demps’ failure to hit the jackpot again after drafting Anthony Davis. (One could argue he did hit the jackpot with the DeMarcus Cousins trade, but then watched the moneybags fall into a wormhole when Cousins’ tore his Achilles.) You can’t blame Stern for the instability without crediting him with saving the market from bidders who’d move the team to Seattle, San Jose, or Kansas City. You can’t fault Demps without acknowledging how abnormally tough his situation has been.

The story now emanating from New Orleans is that Gayle Benson and Saints GM Mickey Loomis fired Demps in part due to the wackadoo situation Thursday, where short-timer Anthony Davis left the arena after a shoulder injury in the middle of a nationally televised game without anyone knowing that he was going to get an MRI. Well, without anyone but Demps knowing. Demps apparently didn’t forward the proverbial email, and coach Alvin Gentry had to answer the post-game media firestorm knowing nothing.

No one gets fired just for that, and the Pelic-aints braintrust protests too much by claiming this had nothing to do with the Lakers subterfuge mess. Everything has everything to do with everything.

It’s an unfortunate if appropriate end to Demps’ long, odd reign in New Orleans. You can’t quite explain whether it’s right or wrong, or what exactly is the reason for anything, or whether anyone should feel good or bad about it. It’s a quiet little chaos, a tangle of shrugs and hmphs.

This is the New Orleans Pelicans. It’s a real mess, but no one can quite explain succinctly how things got this way, and certainly no one can really be blamed.

Except maybe George Shinn. Yeah, let’s just blame George Shinn. That guy.