This was not the start the New Orleans Pelicans envisioned when they handed the reigns over to Alvin Gentry this offseason. The hope was that the combination of Anthony Davis' meteoric rise and Gentry's modern basketball principles would create a team that could surge to the top of the Western Conference standings.
Anthony Davis and the Pelicans should be better than this, even with their injuries
The Pelicans are 0-4, and many are pointing to their long list of injuries to key players. But they’ve still underachieved, in large part because Anthony Davis is not playing to his full potential.
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Instead, the Pelicans now sit at 0-4 following a 103-94 loss home loss to the Orlando Magic Tuesday. Their current company down in the cellar: the hapless Brooklyn Nets, the tanking Philadelphia 76ers and the flailing Los Angeles Lakers.
The numbers are jarringly bad, and while they don’t end with Davis, they certainly begin with him. He’s shown a surprising lack of on-court concentration on both ends and his shot selection has been poor, with too many jumpers and too few looks in the paint. Davis is averaging nearly 21 points a game, but he’s shooting just 36 percent. He looks uncomfortable in Gentry’s up-tempo offense and is having trouble with defenses keying on him because of all the Pelicans’ injuries.
“We could move the ball a little better. Sometimes, we kind of get in our little mix instead of swinging the ball,” Davis said following Tuesday night’s loss, adding: “I’m always frustrated, I just want to be the best I can, help the team win. I’m not doing that right now. I can’t find a way to put the ball in the basket.”
Davis said he’s being double-teamed more this year than ever before and also acknowledged that these unfamiliar schemes are preventing him from getting into a rhythm.
These are all valid points, especially given the team’s injuries. Likely starters Tyreke Evans and Quincy Pondexter have yet to play, while Omer Asik and Jrue Holiday have been limited with nagging issues. Backup point guard Norris Cole has also been out, forcing the Pelicans to rely on castoffs like Toney Douglas and Ish Smith to deliver Davis the ball. Davis is also going through the growing pains we should expect budding superstars to encounter.
But while it’s easy to focus on the Pelicans’ glaring inability to score, it also ignores the larger issue: they can’t stop anyone. Their defensive rotations are all slow and their effort on that end is absent. No team with a talent like Davis should be surrendering 111 points per 100 possessions like the Pelicans are. That’s the third-worst figure in the NBA and nearly seven points per 100 possessions worse than last season.
Plays like this one from the loss to the Magic have become common. Nobody stepped up as Dewayne Dedmon rolled down the lane for an easy dunk.
Sometimes, it looked like the Magic were running pick-and-rolls against a unit standing in for practice.
These are bad breakdowns. The Pelicans’ struggles on this end last year (they finished 22nd in defensive efficiency) were a major reason Monty Williams got fired. Gentry brought in putative defensive guru Darren Erman to be his lead assistant, so an improvement was expected.
The adjustment has been slow, though. One change in particular that's yet to work is Gentry's decision to move Davis around more rather than keeping him at the basket. Gentry spent last season watching Draymond Green create all sort of havoc by swarming opponents all over the floor for the Golden State Warriors. Last month, Gentry told the Sporting News that he envisioned Davis occupying a similar role.
“I just didn’t think that putting the onus on him to protect the rim drive after drive after drive was right,” Gentry said. “That is really unfair to ask. We have to try to protect him by keeping everybody out of the paint, making everybody become a jump-shooting team. If we do that and then he leads the league in blocked shots, that’s a different story because we want to cut down on the number of attempts he has at that.”
“The way we play defense, it’s a different scheme,” Davis said. “Now, I am on the perimeter a lot. ... But I am not worried about blocking shots. The defense that we run, the scheme, it is all OK. It’s going to happen on its own.”
Yet Davis’ shot-blocking and rim protection numbers (per NBA.com) are about the same, if not better, as they were last year. So what’s the problem?
One obvious answer lies with New Orleans' schedule. The Pelicans have already faced the Warriors twice this year, a group of flamethrowers that could make Bill Russell seem clueless in their current form. But that doesn't explain all the open looks the Pelicans are consistently surrendering to Golden State and other teams. The Magic and Portland Trail Blazers, their two other opponents, aren't exactly world beaters.
The Pelicans’ defensive effort has not been good enough, and Davis is as big a culprit as anyone. He’s failed to rotate to stop cutters.
He’s allowed opponents to beat him down the floor in transition.
He’s let opposing centers snatch offensive rebounds away from him.
Gentry may want Davis to start playing like Green, but it’s hard to imagine Green losing concentration like this.
In fairness to the Pelicans, their constant injuries have made it difficult to develop any sort of continuity practicing the new scheme. That contributes to the late rotations and mental lapses.
Davis has also been forced to play center with Asik, Alexis Ajinca and Kendrick Perkins dealing with injuries, which has been a struggle. Davis is being asked to prop up a small frontcourt featuring the 6'8 Dante Cunningham and the perimeter-oriented Ryan Anderson rather than playing more minutes alongside a rim protector like Asik that can do the dirty work around the hoop.
But Davis is big and talented enough where a team with him at center should at the least be an average defensive unit, if not better. That has not come close to happening early this season.
Perhaps these results begin to turn as the Pelicans continue to mesh and take on teams that don’t score 253 points per game like Golden State. But for that to happen, Davis has to compete his hardest on every possession. Only then will New Orleans begin to look like a team capable of making a real playoff run.
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