NBC Sports: Pelicans Stuck In Triage Mode

[P_B_&_G]

So what do Jrue's numbers need to look like for him to earn his contract? I'll start.

If he plays the way he did leading up to the Allstar break last year or close too it he will have earned every penny amd might even be a good deal.

[PelsFan2313]

I just think there are a lot more pompous and arrogant routine posters who can't take people disagreeing with them on this site vs SR which can manage a respectful discussion every now and then. There are more than a handful of people who think Jrue was overpaid. Was it necessary? That is arguable. Name any other players around his skill level who make as much or more than he does. And, whether you disagree or not, Jrue's contract severely limits our flexibility in the future.

Absolutely true. And honestly those posters are the truly ignorant ones. They know who they are.

[pelicanchamp]

Dell gets a B+ in my opinion. Jrue will earn his money. If he had left the PELS we would be in not so great shape. This team is going to prove to the league that they are here to do what no other team can do, dethrone the warriors. We have a great team and we have the right combination of talent to be incredible. Demps is very very good. I think if we are doing well and we had the chance to get better he would trade the pick before the deadline to add more necessary talent.

Watch, Jrue is going to be the X factor for this team. He's going to be playing a lot of SG and PG. I'm not worried about it. He will probably have a higher 3 point percentage this season especially if he gets open shots.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Taker597]

They are absolutely right. This team is a mess and constructed terribly due to bad contracts. Wasting and overpaying is our motto. You guys want to be homers when all you have you do is look at the body of work. The Team has been terrible for two years. We have a Combo Guard( Who has a terrible 4 years and no way deserved his contract) , PF, and C... with a couple of decent role players. That is in this mess of roster. We have nothing to sustain success even if we did luck into the 8th seed this year. Sometimes you got to be real... This team is middle of pack and has no means to improve due to cap constants and mismanagement of talent and picks.

Next year... We have to extend Cousin. We can't sneak in a super star shooter and we don't have assets to trade for something worthwhile. We had our opportunity to get another super star before cap strapping us to Jrue with his bird rights. This roster is what we are gonna ride and die with the next 4 years. It's not pretty and it's not a contender.

[Bricklayer]

They are absolutely right. This team is a mess and constructed terribly due to bad contracts. Wasting and overpaying is our motto. You guys want to be homers when all you have you do is look at the body of work. The Team has been terrible for two years. We have a Combo Guard( Who has a terrible 4 years and no way deserved his contract) , PF, and C... with a couple of decent role players. That is in this mess of roster. We have nothing to sustain success even if we did luck into the 8th seed this year. Sometimes you got to be real... This team is middle of pack and has no means to improve due to cap constants and mismanagement of talent and picks.

Next year... We have to extend Cousin. We can't sneak in a super star shooter and we don't have assets to trade for something worthwhile. We had our opportunity to get another super star before cap strapping us to Jrue with his bird rights. This roster is what we are gonna ride and die with the next 4 years. It's not pretty and it's not a contender.

You wanted a superstar shooter on top of the Twin Towers??

Goodness. Perhaps trying to build a 50 win perennial playoff team before building a GOAT team contender might be in order.

It's really not a question of more star power now. It's just the right roleplayers rather than a random assemblage. Who was the 3rd best player on the early Twin Tower Spurs? What about the original Twin Tower Rockets? Maybe the ghost of Sean Elliot, who was a roleplayer by that time? Joined in the starting lineup Avery Johnson and Vinny Del Negro? And it was Rodney McCray -- handy all around swiss army knife -- in Houston. Then a drug addled wreck of a backcourt. Robert Reid, a SF playing PG. Jim Petersen as a 3rd big. Those teams didn't have, or need, 3rd stars in order to make runs all the way to the Finals. They just collected the right roleplayers and ran smart systems to maximize them.

The Rondo/Tony Allen twin acquisitions could be real key here. That's a duo who actually won a title playing together a decade ago. They weren't the main pieces then, and they aren't the main pieces now, but as the outside acquisitions they know how to play together and how to set a championship tone. The hope would be having them together produces synergy and more impact than either would provide alone.

[Taker597]

You wanted a superstar shooter on top of the Twin Towers??

Goodness. Perhaps trying to build a 50 win perennial playoff team before building a GOAT team contender might be in order.

It's really not a question of more star power now. It's just the right roleplayers rather than a random assemblage. Who was the 3rd best player on the early Twin Tower Spurs? What about the original Twin Tower Rockets? Maybe the ghost of Sean Elliot, who was a roleplayer by that time? Joined in the starting lineup Avery Johnson and Vinny Del Negro? And it was Rodney McCray -- handy all around swiss army knife -- in Houston. Then a drug addled wreck of a backcourt. Robert Reid, a SF playing PG. Jim Petersen as a 3rd big. Those teams didn't have, or need, 3rd stars in order to make runs all the way to the Finals. They just collected the right roleplayers and ran smart systems to maximize them.

The Rondo/Tony Allen twin acquisitions could be real key here. That's a duo who actually won a title playing together a decade ago. They weren't the main pieces then, and they aren't the main pieces now, but as the outside acquisitions they know how to play together and how to set a championship tone. The hope would be having them together produces synergy and more impact than either would provide alone.

Do you not see the current landscape in the NBA with heavy emphasis on being good at shooting from the outside. In fact, it's the reason we was lotto team this year with Cousin.

[luckyman]

Do you not see the current landscape in the NBA with heavy emphasis on being good at shooting from the outside. In fact, it's the reason we was lotto team this year with Cousin.

Both Memphis and OKC were bottom half of the league is TS%. The Pelicans were even above Memphis. OKC was better than the Pelicans by 1/10 of a point.

Both OKC and Memphis were Western conference playoff teams.

[Bricklayer]

Do you not see the current landscape in the NBA with heavy emphasis on being good at shooting from the outside. In fact, it's the reason we was lotto team this year with Cousin.

Emphasis on "current landscape". I can only imagine somebody telling Mike D'Antoni a dozen years ago "do you not see the current landscape in the NBA emphasizing defense and big man play!?"

Times change in the NBA. And what you actually see are a bunch of weak kneed smallball wannanbe 3pt chucking teams trying to copycat the Warriors with no hope of ever being as good at it as they are. And of course a whole generation of fans that has grown up with no idea what big men can actually do and think some random semicircle painted out on the court, at varying distances in various leagues, and not even in existence at one time, is the be all and end all of basketball.

Its an entire ecosystem ripe for a fall. Warriors aside. And the Pels in particular are far better equipped with their personnel to stop what the chucking little ballerinas are doing than those teams are prepared to stop what the Pelicans will be doing.


P.S. Memphis, with (and in no small part because of) Tony Allen, has been the worst 3pt shooting team of the decade. And yet with a less explosive big man pairing they have made the playoffs every single year of the era.

[msusousaphone]

What people miss on the "current landscape" is that unless you have LBJ on your team, continuity is Kong to his king.

(pause for my word play)

But really. The Warriors didn't go out and get superstars before KD. It's a bit naive to look at their team now and say that it is all superstars but they weren't before they started winning. Winning made them superstars. It was a bunch of draftees with some talent that struggled elsewhere. The pieces didn't just fit together and they won right away. They had to have some continuity first.

Continuity is boring. Just look at the word. I almost fell asleep on the toilet typing it. No sports writer wants to write about continuity. It's boring. It doesn't sell. NOLA winning doesn't sell either. We are a small market. But don't be a sports writer. Be better. Know continuity. Bore people. It works.

Even the Heat needed some continuity to win.

So yeah. We didn't make the playoffs. But guys. Continuity. It's a thing. We have that know. Even Rondo is familiar with Boogie.

Say it.

Continuity.

I believe in you, Taker. You can do it. Make it your word of the day.