Introducing the 1997-98 San Antonio Pelicans

[Bricklayer]

a subtitle to this thread should be "Aka the Importance of Defense":


1997-98 Spurs (56-26)

Structure:
C -- superstar 1
PF -- superstar 2
SF -- aging and injured
SG -- combo SG/PG
PG -- small, pure PG

resemble any team we know?

Stats:
C -- Admiral 21.6pts (.581TS%) 10.6reb 2.7ast 0.9stl 2.6blk 2.8TO
PF -- Duncan 21.1pts (.577TS%) 11.9reb 2.7ast 0.7stl 2.5blk 2.4TO
SF -- Elliot 9.3pts 3.4reb (.495TS%) 1.7ast 0.7stl 0.4blk 1.6TO
SG -- Del Negro 9.5pts (.493TS%) 2.8reb 3.4ast 0.7stl 0.1blk 1.0TO
PG -- Johnson 10.2pts (.514TS%) 2.0reb 7.9ast 1.1stl 0.2blk 2.2TO

SG/SF -- JJackson 8.8pts 2.6reb 1.9ast
SF -- Person 6.7pts 3.3reb 1.4ast
C/PF/SF(!) -- Perdue 5.0pts 6.8reb 0.7ast
SF -- MWilliams 6.3pts 2.5reb 1.2ast

Because of continuous injuries at SF/SG, bench guys actually started more collective games at those positions than the starters did. they even started Will Perdue at "small" forward a number of times.

They won 56 games. Admiral on his way down. Duncan a rookie. A group of little guys struggling to reach .500TS%. And they still won 56. How'd they do it? Defense:

Team Stats
Pts/Gm: 92.5 (23rd)
ORTG: 103.8 (17th)

Opp Pts Gm: 88.5 (1st)
DRTG: 99.4 (2nd)

[PolishFan]

Let's bring the refs back in time as well

[UNO Gracias]

Person was named "The Rifleman" for a reason, we currently don't have a Chuck Persons on our team.

[Mr. West]

Fingers crossed, as they say.

[msusousaphone]

Person was aight. His average is lower than I thought it would be.

Yeah. The rules our called different. Less to our advantage. But our two bigs are in their prime, Jrue will account for way more scoring, and Rondo more assists than that. Against those NBA teams, we would dominate, in today's NBA we will be top five......but can we go over the top?

I think so. Like Mr W says, defense. I think we'll be the top D in the league. And we lineup well against the other top teams.

[UNO Gracias]

Given the amount of shots from behind the arc that he took, Person's average would be amazing here, and would be what we have been looking for since Demps got here. A real 3 & D guy. I don't see that guy on this team, but boy would I love to.

[SonOfNOLA]

I'm not worried about our D as much as us getting points out of everyone. Getting stops is good if we can put up offense on the other end to put games away. We'll go as far as Jrue's offense at SG takes us. AD and Boogie can't do everything. I'm excited about Rondo putting everyone in position to make plays, but moreso Jrue has to transform into a 20+ ppg Guard like a CJ McCollum for us to contend for anything. He's def getting paid like it so I'm hoping that becomes a reality. There's no reason why he can't explode with the weapons that he has around him. If that can happen, we can keep the assist machine Rondo here a few more years, resign Boogie and just have to upgrade SF

[luckyman]

Different league back then.

However, I think people are severely discounting the talent on this team. Being a tiny market with no championship winning history playing a big part in that.

This team as constructed right now can easily win 55 games. Barring injury.

[Impose]

Different league back then.

However, I think people are severely discounting the talent on this team. Being a tiny market with no championship winning history playing a big part in that.

This team as constructed right now can easily win 55 games. Barring injury.

Yea different league, could hurt us. BUT if AD can get his 3pt% upto around 36 and Cousins gets to 40% we will have wide open spaces in the paint for the guards to cut into and that will help our efficiency tremendously. Our offensive efficiency was the killer for us last year, sample size too small to know what change the Boogie trade has really made, but we did let go of the most efficient player in the trade, Buddy (60% TS when in Sacramento, I knew he was on a tight leash here, shame on us).

Anyway I digress. Aside from the 'Twin Tower' name thats been thrown around for Davis/Cousins there really isn't any comparison to Robinson and Duncan. Those guys were so amazing on defense and so good offensively Davis/Cousins is a poor mans version (maybe a slight exaggeration).

But yea, the amount the league has changed in the last 20 years kinda hurts this OP. But lets try and stay positive hey? We'll know more once we're 20 or so games into the year.

[Krysanthem]

It all depends on wether we are able to dictate the pace of the game, wether we are able to keep the TO's low and wether we can defend the 3 point line well enough.
So far this team only has one solid full sized wing defender ( and Solo has been shaky on the offensive end for his whole career). In order to be successful we at least need to slow down guys like Lebron, Butler, Wiggins, Durant or George, while at the same time getting our bigs room to go to work on offense. Our bigs won't have that much of an impact, if our perimeter guys, don't carry their load. And the whole strategy of playing two bigs alongside each other is doomed, if we don't have good enough spacing to take care of the ball. The moment we get into one of those high paced 3 point shootouts with teams like GS or Portland, because we allow them to run off our TO's or missed shots, we are at a severe disadvantage.

There are still big questionmarks and red flags for the Pelicans and so far the FO wasn't able to adress every position of need.

[GuardianAngel25]

The key to our success this year is going to be Solomon Hill. If he can turn into that 3 and D player for us along with the rest of his skill set we will be a very dangerous team. Solos problem is his consistency not that he doesn't have the talent. If we can get an Ariza type of improvement from him at the 3 then we are in good shape. Solo just entering the prime of his career with a full year here under his belt and hopefully in great shape should have his best basketball ahead of him. People are forgetting almost our whole team is entering their prime years or still yet to and with health will have their best basketball ahead of them. Along with Solo you have AD, Boogie, and Jrue who can potentially take big steps forward.

If our bigs can learn to work together we could be seeing the best big man duo in NBA history. These 2 guys have that kind of ability. If they have figured it out a lot of teams are going to have some serious trouble trying to stop them. No telling how much these guys have improved this off season. You have Boogie who is supposedly in the best shape of his career after undergoing a complete training regimen and a plus he is being guarded by AD daily. Then you have AD who still isn't in his prime years and has continually improved each year. If he just picks up a dominant post move learning a few things from Boogie then he is unstoppable. AD is very close to becoming a dominant post player and I have no doubt he will with his work ethic. I'm surprised people aren't more excited at watching this duo be able to start fresh together with a coach who is one of the best at spacing and moving the ball with bigs.

[msusousaphone]

A month or two back the Pels started releasing stories on how Boogie is getting in this awesome fitness that he hasn't been into. We don't talk about that a lot in our strategy convos. Is NOLA just trying to push the usual hype during the off-season or will this really be a big difference?

I think it'll end up being an underrated variable. He'll be sneaky quick. That will help with some of the spacing woes and improve the defense even more.

Another thing we don't talk enough about is spacing. Why does everyone ignore the spacing stuff?