November 4th - New Orleans Pelicans vs Atlanta Hawks - 4-1

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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae

Agree to disagree. Volume is often far more important than percentage in terms of impacting a defensive scheme. If Zion took 2 threes a game, every game, and shot even 50% on them, he would garner less defensive attention than someone taking 5 of them and shooting 35%. Even Jokic usually shoots significantly more than 2 a game. And I believe it wouldn't help the rest of the team as much as him driving would, because when he drives he takes 3 or 4 defenders with him, guys get open, and he passes. You end up then with guys like Hawkins or Trey Murphy shooting with 8 feet of space. If Zion just stays at home and throws up his one make a game, everyone stays home.

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Jokic does not shoot "significantly" more than 2 a game. He's averaging 3.7 so far this year and during their title run last year, he averaged 2.2. He has hovered around 3 most of his career.

That is just enough for Jokic and the Denver offense to not get the Zion treatment where his defender just stands just outside the free throw line and mucks up movement for everybody else.

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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae

I'd like to say that I cannot believe that the takeaway from tonight is ''Zion's offense needs work'', but given some of the stuff I see on this board and elsewhere, I actually can't be surprised.

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Don't get defensive about your baby boo Zion. I don't think anybody said thats the central take away from tonight's game.

It is indeed one of them out of many.

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Originally Posted by luckyman

Jokic does not shoot "significantly" more than 2 a game. He's averaging 3.7 so far this year and during their title run last year, he averaged 2.2. He has hovered around 3 most of his career.

That is just enough for Jokic and the Denver offense to not get the Zion treatment where his defender just stands just outside the free throw line and mucks up movement for everybody else.

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Last year was a low outlier - he's shot at least 3.3 every other year since 2017-18, and over 3.5 in 4 years (including this one). Those numbers only increased during the playoffs, where he averages more than 4 attempts a game for his career. Personally, I consider shooting 175% more to be a significant increase. If you don't, that's cool.

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Originally Posted by luckyman

Don't get defensive about your baby boo Zion. I don't think anybody said thats the central take away from tonight's game.

It is indeed one of them out of many.

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Nah, don't take it personal. And if you don't think anyone is prioritising that as their critique, I think it might be a good idea for you to read back the last page of the thread, where it's the central topic.

It's nothing to do with the critique being of Zion. I even criticised Zion myself multiple times in this thread for his atrocious defensive performance tonight. I just think if you're asking yourself what needs fixing about this team, Zion's offense isn't even one of the top 10 biggest issues.

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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae

Last year was a low outlier - he's shot at least 3.3 every other year since 2017-18, and over 3.5 in 4 years (including this one). Those numbers only increased during the playoffs, where he averages more than 4 attempts a game for his career. Personally, I consider shooting 175% more to be a significant increase. If you don't, that's cool.

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The last 2 years in the playoffs he's shot 3.8 and 3.6. No that is not "significantly" more than his regular season output.

The number 4 is 100% more than the number 2. Using percentages for low magnitude numbers is in a book called "How to Lie With Statistics." Let's not do that.

The bottom line is all those numbers are better than 0 and they make a bigger than small fish impact.

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Originally Posted by luckyman

The last 2 years in the playoffs he's shot 3.8 and 3.6. No that is not "significantly" more than his regular season output.

The number 4 is 100% more than the number 2. Using percentages for low magnitude numbers is in a book called "How to Lie With Statistics." Let's not do that.

The bottom line is all those numbers are better than 0 and they make a bigger than small fish impact.

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Again, those are lows in his playoff career. His career average 3PA in the playoffs is 4.4, which is twice the regular season career low 2.2 you tried to use as your example from last year as proof that 2 is enough to move defenses - I haven't read the book ''How to Lie With Statistics'' myself, but I'd imagine that cherry picking is probably in there as well. Let's not do that.

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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae

Nah, don't take it personal. And if you don't think anyone is prioritising that as their critique, I think it might be a good idea for you to read back the last page of the thread, where it's the central topic.

It's nothing to do with the critique being of Zion. I even criticised Zion myself multiple times in this thread for his atrocious defensive performance tonight. I just think if you're asking yourself what needs fixing about this team, Zion's offense isn't even one of the top 10 biggest issues.

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But his defense (if not his laziness) is. Heck it might even be a top three issue.

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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae

Again, those are lows in his playoff career. His career average 3PA in the playoffs is 4.4, which is more twice the regular season career low 2.2 you tried to use as your example from last year as proof that 2 is enough to move defenses - I haven't read the book ''How to Lie With Statistics'' myself, but I'd imagine that cherry picking is probably in there as well. Let's not do that.

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Thats not cherry picking since they are all low numbers to begin with. "More than twice" off a base of 2 is still not significant no matter how much you desperately want to argue that nonsense.

Bad logic is also in that book. Let's not do that.

The point remains, passing up WIDE OPEN 3s to barrel into a waiting defense isn't warping anything. They are prepared for it.

Him taking 2 - 4 a game and making near league average will change this ridiculous paint clogging defense we see now with him taking ZERO. To say otherwise is borderline delusional talk.

it is pathetic for sure. if he made boards his #1 priority and focus then he would get a hell of a lot more and a lot of his other game will flow from there. we do need to recruit someone to protect the rim and grab some boards. We were probably hoping for jaxson hayes to become that guy. What a bust of a pick!

Went to the game last night and kinda surprised to see that the main takeaway was Zion's lack of effort - and not BI's. I couldn't believe how unassertive Brandon was. It's like he was pouting for being forced to play with a bo-bo that's still ouchy.

I do agree that Zion's defensive effort and performance was a problem - and I also agree that his offense is one-dimensional and that taking some more open 3's should help (every time he drives the paint, he has to do something spectacular - or draw contact - to have success because he's blanket covered). But at the risk of losing my reputation as the optimistic guy, I'm starting to get really worried that Brandon's attitude is the one that might blow up this locker room.

Also, why in the world was Jonas on the bench the entire 4th quarter? Nance was terrible as usual. Did I miss an injury?

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Originally Posted by neworleanshoo

Went to the game last night and kinda surprised to see that the main takeaway was Zion's lack of effort - and not BI's. I couldn't believe how unassertive Brandon was. It's like he was pouting for being forced to play with a bo-bo that's still ouchy.

I do agree that Zion's defensive effort and performance was a problem - and I also agree that his offense is one-dimensional and that taking some more open 3's should help (every time he drives the paint, he has to do something spectacular - or draw contact - to have success because he's blanket covered). But at the risk of losing my reputation as the optimistic guy, I'm starting to get really worried that Brandon's attitude is the one that might blow up this locker room.

Also, why in the world was Jonas on the bench the entire 4th quarter? Nance was terrible as usual. Did I miss an injury?

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Oh Ingram was 1st on my list, but i already gave up on him. I think there is hope for Zion. As for Ingram, i would pack him with 2 first roundwrs for Markannen.

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Originally Posted by Fedupfan

Also, stop playing Larry Nance if he isn?t going to rebound. Jonas playing 21 minutes is appalling. This guy deserves better.

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NOLA message on Jonas is pretty clear: they don't want him there. JV is pretty classy about it and says that he's not thinking beyond this season ... yeah, right. A player in his prime does not mind warming the bench.

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Originally Posted by luckyman

If teams have zero respect for Zion outside of 5 ft, there's not much anyone else can do when he has the ball away from the basket. There's no space to cut.

BI attracts 2. If they don't-- he makes them pay. He's shooting 53% from the field so far, which is higher than Zion oddly enough. You do WANT that on the floor with Zion to take pressure off him. You especially want it right next to Zion and make teams choose. That part of the offense is not being utilized to its fullest. The few times they've worked a 2 man game on the same side of the floor, it's worked. Everybody was talking about it game 1 against Memphis. Haven't seen it much since then because BI had to take his customary in season vacation. So I think people just need to give it time.

Having dynamic players on the floor at the same time will never be a problem for any team and it's not the Pelicans problem now. That will always be more effective than relying on Zion barreling into the lane to find 3 pt catch and shoot targets. Because shot making like that comes and goes. It's one reason even during that December run they could not win a road game.

Meanwhile

Zion absolutely needs to expand his offensive game and take wide open 3s.

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I’m fine if Zion develops his three point game a bit, but that’s not going to help the team much, it would help his individual scoring a bit and reduce the wear and tear on his body a bit. But he’ll never be a catch and shoot player, so the idea of him extending his range as an escape valve for BI is never going to happen.

If you want Zion to work on anything, I’d suggest having him work on a jump hook. It will enable him to slow down a bit when he gets the ball down low and become a better playmaker out of the post. It will also reduce the damage he’s doing to his body by forcing his drives to the basket. And his opponents have to respect his ability to drive to the basket, so they’ll have to play off of him enough to allow him pretty good looks a little further out from the basket. Zion has a pretty good touch around the basket so I don’t see any reason that he couldn’t develop a pretty automatic jump hook.

Zion working on his post game will also allow him to start to gel with Brandon a little better. On Brandon’s part, he needs to work on his catch and shoot game a bit. I know he doesn’t want to, as he put it, just stand in the corner, but he’s got the skill set to do it. And it would allow him to play off of Zion a bit better. It will also let BI get some points without forcing the action as much. Zion on his end also needs to be much more aggressive in trying to get rebounds when he’s not in the action. It’s also something that he has the skill set and physicality to do, but it appears that he has little desire in doing. Perhaps as his conditioning improves his rebounding will improve.

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Originally Posted by neworleanshoo

Went to the game last night and kinda surprised to see that the main takeaway was Zion's lack of effort - and not BI's. I couldn't believe how unassertive Brandon was. It's like he was pouting for being forced to play with a bo-bo that's still ouchy.

I do agree that Zion's defensive effort and performance was a problem - and I also agree that his offense is one-dimensional and that taking some more open 3's should help (every time he drives the paint, he has to do something spectacular - or draw contact - to have success because he's blanket covered). But at the risk of losing my reputation as the optimistic guy, I'm starting to get really worried that Brandon's attitude is the one that might blow up this locker room.

Also, why in the world was Jonas on the bench the entire 4th quarter? Nance was terrible as usual. Did I miss an injury?

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Capella is a bad matchup for Jonas. Kind of like Ayton.

As for your other points, I think BI really doesn’t know how to play with Zion, and I think it’s causing him to lose his assertiveness. Like I said above, neither player plays particularly well without the ball, which is why both seem to just stand around a lot while the other is ISO. It’s not a good combination. I do think we should trade one of them. If you asked my last year I was so fed up with Zion’s inability to responsibly rehab his injuries that I would have easily traded Zion. This year, it’s BI’s ********ty attitude and phantom injuries that have pissed me off. Both seem to have serious maturity issues.

It's time to bring back P&R ball handler Zion. Zion playmaking vs a rotating defense is basically unstoppable. The problem is he's seeing way too many set defenses right now in isos. Boreggo's offense looks fine when the other team isn't destroying the offensive boards and the pelicans are getting transition opportunities, but that doesn't happen against actual good teams.

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Originally Posted by neworleanshoo

Went to the game last night and kinda surprised to see that the main takeaway was Zion's lack of effort - and not BI's. I couldn't believe how unassertive Brandon was. It's like he was pouting for being forced to play with a bo-bo that's still ouchy.

I do agree that Zion's defensive effort and performance was a problem - and I also agree that his offense is one-dimensional and that taking some more open 3's should help (every time he drives the paint, he has to do something spectacular - or draw contact - to have success because he's blanket covered). But at the risk of losing my reputation as the optimistic guy, I'm starting to get really worried that Brandon's attitude is the one that might blow up this locker room.

Also, why in the world was Jonas on the bench the entire 4th quarter? Nance was terrible as usual. Did I miss an injury?

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I think that whatever your point of view, if you're being honest with yourself, you have to say that BI and Zion do not work well together as a combination.

It can be argued that that's a result of them not playing much together, and there might be some truth to that, but we no longer have the time to find out. BI has an extension coming up that will cripple the franchise's ability to make moves for years incoming - you have to decide if you're committing or not before that contract gets signed, because once the ink is dry, what we have is what we have.

As far as I'm concerned, we're reaching the point where the decision has to be made and you have to split them up. We talked about why you might prefer to move one or the other this off-season with regards to potential Scoot trades, and all the arguments still stand.

Of course we're the Pelicans and Griff has an allergy to making big impactful moves, so I feel like we'll probably just stand pat, sign BI to the massive extension, slowly lose the supporting cast that we can no longer afford to pay because ownership won't go into the tax for mediocrity, and win 40 - 45 games a year for the foreseeable until either Zion or BI asks out.

You may have noticed that I am feeling a tad pessimistic about this team right now.

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Originally Posted by neworleanshoo

Went to the game last night and kinda surprised to see that the main takeaway was Zion's lack of effort - and not BI's. I couldn't believe how unassertive Brandon was. It's like he was pouting for being forced to play with a bo-bo that's still ouchy.

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You and I both.

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Originally Posted by Freyfamilyreuni

I’m fine if Zion develops his three point game a bit, but that’s not going to help the team much, it would help his individual scoring a bit and reduce the wear and tear on his body a bit. But he’ll never be a catch and shoot player, so the idea of him extending his range as an escape valve for BI is never going to happen.

If you want Zion to work on anything, I’d suggest having him work on a jump hook. It will enable him to slow down a bit when he gets the ball down low and become a better playmaker out of the post. It will also reduce the damage he’s doing to his body by forcing his drives to the basket. And his opponents have to respect his ability to drive to the basket, so they’ll have to play off of him enough to allow him pretty good looks a little further out from the basket. Zion has a pretty good touch around the basket so I don’t see any reason that he couldn’t develop a pretty automatic jump hook.

Zion working on his post game will also allow him to start to gel with Brandon a little better. On Brandon’s part, he needs to work on his catch and shoot game a bit. I know he doesn’t want to, as he put it, just stand in the corner, but he’s got the skill set to do it. And it would allow him to play off of Zion a bit better. It will also let BI get some points without forcing the action as much. Zion on his end also needs to be much more aggressive in trying to get rebounds when he’s not in the action. It’s also something that he has the skill set and physicality to do, but it appears that he has little desire in doing. Perhaps as his conditioning improves his rebounding will improve.

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And I disagree. Because he isnt attempting them at all, defenses have gotten to this absurd point where they just back completely off him. And that doesn't just affect his individual scoring. It affects spacing for everyone else who wants access to the paint. There is a trickle down effect.

And I think Zion can make these shots. At least be a Draymond level threat where teams don't COMPLETELY sag off him, as bad a shooter he is. And Zion can be a better shooter than Draymond.

As for BI being lazy??? He's one of the few actually making an effort on the boards. Led the team with 7 last night and he's been around that level all year. Had a block and a deflection that resulted in a steal for Herb.

He starting camping in a corner in the 2nd quarter because they wanted to get Z his touches. And again, who can make cuts into a packed paint? It's even difficult for screening to free up space there.

Zion should be encouraged to add more to his game. Especially when he has shown the capability to do other things. I have no idea why that is even being argued especially after watching how he drives into leagues of players and effectively gets blocked and turns it over. I don?t think he is the problem and I never said that. It is in his best interest to give defenders a reason to step away from the paint.

And BI isn?t exempt from criticism either. He has taken a step back as a playmaker since that injury last year. For whatever reason he is reading the double teams and traps slower whereas prior to that injury he was playmaking at a great level. We have a lot of holes to work on and fix. Let?s fix them

Also, I’m not going to start drama and say whatever is targeted at me. It’s fine. I wouldn’t have even mentioned Zion tonight- I was just responding to a post about Zion being one dimensional (which is undeniably true at this juncture). It’s constructive criticism. It is nothing personal against anyone. Our big money boys are going to be under the microscope. They should be. Particularly Zion who has barely featured at all for this team and is on silly money. We need an extra dimension from him. No excuses

Five years in, the bubble-wrapped, lazy, man-child is becoming the NBA's Version of JaMarcus Russell. Both, blessed with freakish athletic talent, neither has made it work in their chosen sport.

A true superstar makes his teammates better than they are; # 1 does the opposite. If things don't change quickly, he'll join Russell as a Bust of Epic Proportions.

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Originally Posted by As I See It

That's probability because most watch the game without a pre-ordained agenda. Try it you might like it.

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Lol!

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Originally Posted by luckyman

If Zion is shooting 38% from 2 - 3 threes per game, that makes a difference and team will respect it. That's not small fish. Teams will not leave 5 feet of space like they are now and completely disregard that area of the court around him. Which also affects his teammates.

Jokic does just enough to make teams pay when they leave him open behind that line and it makes a difference. There is no reason Zion can't do the same.

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38%? I would love it, but a player is not all of a sudden start shooting 38% from 3 when it has not been part of his game in his career. That is a bit ambitious. Giannis has added it to his game and he is under 29% for his career on about 2 per game.

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Originally Posted by JJackisangry

Zion should be encouraged to add more to his game. Especially when he has shown the capability to do other things. I have no idea why that is even being argued especially after watching how he drives into leagues of players and effectively gets blocked and turns it over. I don?t think he is the problem and I never said that. It is in his best interest to give defenders a reason to step away from the paint.

And BI isn?t exempt from criticism either. He has taken a step back as a playmaker since that injury last year. For whatever reason he is reading the double teams and traps slower whereas prior to that injury he was playmaking at a great level. We have a lot of holes to work on and fix. Let?s fix them

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He really needs to develop a mid range game so that the defense has to make a choice on how to defend him rather than just crowding the paint.

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Originally Posted by luckyman

As for BI being lazy??? He's one of the few actually making an effort on the boards. Led the team with 7 last night and he's been around that level all year. Had a block and a deflection that resulted in a steal for Herb.

He starting camping in a corner in the 2nd quarter because they wanted to get Z his touches. And again, who can make cuts into a packed paint? It's even difficult for screening to free up space there.

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I'll admit, that stat surprised me, and it's encouraging, so thank you. Still, I was mostly talking about what I saw (repeatedly) on the offensive end, not on defense. I don't buy the excuse that he stayed put on the wing because the coaches told him to do that. He has far too much potential to waste like that. Regardless, it's clear that Zion, BI, and CJ aren't working well together. In time, hopefully that changes.