November 13th - New Orleans Pelicans vs Memphis Grizzlies - 1-12

[Pelicanidae]

Second game of the back-to-back tonight!

🏀: vs Memphis
🕕: 6pm CST
📺: @BallySportsNO
📻: @ESPNRadioNOLA #WBD | @SmoothieKing pic.twitter.com/TfBhGNhNgj

— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) November 13, 2021

Simple story here: we play like we did last game vs Brooklyn tonight and we win.

Memphis's record is 6-6, but it's kind of a sham 6-6. They've yet to have any real dominating wins against anyone, good or bad, and many of their games have been barely won, in the same way that many of ours have been barely lost. Despite being 6-6, good for 8th in the West right now, they have the 5th worst Net Rating as a team in the NBA and are one of the only teams challenging us for ineptitude in some ways.

Memphis have the 29th worst defense in the NBA, second only to ours, and their offense is bottom 10 as well.

Does that mean we're guaranteed a win? No, of course not. The reality is that, as bad as Memphis are, we've been worse. But we have shown signs here and there that we can play better than our record might show: last game as an example of that. If we show up like that again, we win. That's my belief. But if we play shy of it then we'll lose and be 1-13 and we'll deserve it.

Let's see which Pelicans team shows up.

[AusPel]

Probably should win?

Iono. Competitive losses seem the best of both worlds at this point.

Me wants dat Banchero

[Pelicanidae]

Probably should win?

Iono. Competitive losses seem the best of both worlds at this point.

Me wants dat Banchero

Yeah I can see the argument for that. Assuming Zion and Ingram are both back at some point either just before or during December, we're not a league-worst team anymore. We could easily play at a slightly above .500 rate after that, which of course brings us closer and closer to a .500 record overall. While we'll be too far gone to actually get back to .500, I could see us crawling to something like the 4th or 5th worst record in the league instead of the 1st or 2nd and then acccidentally getting the 10th pick like complete idiots, which wastes the entire mini tank.

Much better to be so awful before Zion and BI return that they cannot get us back to even 30 wins without having to turn into MVP candidates. We play 24 games total before December 1st. Let's get to 1-23, so that even if we go 30-28 when BI and Zion return, we end up with a 31-51 record. That way we're destined for a top 4 pick unless God literally hates us.

[6warddude]

we have memphis number....memphis is a team we love beating....so i think we get the win tonight.....

i just dont want to see zion with a kool aid smile being too damn friendly with JA tonight.....just dap him off,,say a few words and then bounce to the locker room...

[Pelicanidae]

Ingram still questionable confirmed, injury report just dropped

[Pelicanidae]

we have memphis number....memphis is a team we love beating....so i think we get the win tonight.....

i just dont want to see zion with a kool aid smile being too damn friendly with JA tonight.....just dap him off,,say a few words and then bounce to the locker room...

I swear, the whole Jordan mythos plus the Magic/Bird rivalry has totalled warped a lot of people's views on how sports people are supposed to behave towards each other.

Maybe it's just an American sports thing, because I know that the NFL rivalries are pretty crazy as well, but this idea that you're doing something wrong if you're ''too damn friendly'' with the opposition is wild to me. That's just not how sports work over here. You compete hard, you do your best to win, and if you lose you lose, that's it. If you lose to your friend, they're still your friend and you can be friendly. That doesn't mean you didn't want to win, but sports people are humans before they're athletes and friendship can (and should!) come first. If Zion wants to give Ja a hug then let him, who cares?

[6warddude]

I swear, the whole Jordan mythos plus the Magic/Bird rivalry has totalled warped a lot of people's views on how sports people are supposed to behave towards each other.

Maybe it's just an American sports thing, because I know that the NFL rivalries are pretty crazy as well, but this idea that you're doing something wrong if you're ''too damn friendly'' with the opposition is wild to me. That's just not how sports work over here. You compete hard, you do your best to win, and if you lose you lose, that's it. If you lose to your friend, they're still your friend and you can be friendly. That doesn't mean you didn't want to win, but sports people are humans before they're athletes and friendship can (and should!) come first. If Zion wants to give Ja a hug then let him, who cares?

i care damn it.....congratulating your friend is one thing...all of that extra stuff after a loss is too damn much for me.....do the extra stuff off the court. i dont want to see it after the game....

give me jordan,,magic,,bird,,lebron and greek freak type of players and mindset all damn day......dae you can have the we all get along hugging ,,no killer instinct type of players......i guess its a small reason why lebron is the king and winning because he suck these dudes into being buddy buddy on the court then take there soul come game time......dae,,i said what i said.....get off your soapbox.....

[Funcrusher]

I swear, the whole Jordan mythos plus the Magic/Bird rivalry has totalled warped a lot of people's views on how sports people are supposed to behave towards each other.

Maybe it's just an American sports thing, because I know that the NFL rivalries are pretty crazy as well, but this idea that you're doing something wrong if you're ''too damn friendly'' with the opposition is wild to me. That's just not how sports work over here. You compete hard, you do your best to win, and if you lose you lose, that's it. If you lose to your friend, they're still your friend and you can be friendly. That doesn't mean you didn't want to win, but sports people are humans before they're athletes and friendship can (and should!) come first. If Zion wants to give Ja a hug then let him, who cares?

we're all about image and mythos in American sports. You wouldn't believe the type of nonsense people here come up with on the daily to explain team dynamics. I particularly lose my mind when people talk about players being alphas and betas, and use that as an extrapolation of what their team has or is missing... like, that's all extra stuff man, that's not basketball. Talk to me about what a player does on the court, or how that's reflected in the data. Whenever people simply don't understand why something is happening, their only recourse is explaining that particular something in abstract, symbolic, terms.

[6warddude]

we're all about image and mythos in American sports. You wouldn't believe the type of nonsense people here come up with on the daily to explain team dynamics. I particularly lose my mind when people talk about players being alphas and betas, and use that as an extrapolation of what their team has or is missing... like, that's all extra stuff man, that's not basketball. Talk to me about what a player does on the court, or how that's reflected in the data. Whenever people simply don't understand why something is happening, their only recourse is explaining that particular something in abstract, symbolic, terms.

so you switched up to say that lol smh....yall play to much on here...

[Pelicanidae]

we're all about image and mythos in American sports. You wouldn't believe the type of nonsense people here come up with on the daily to explain team dynamics. I particularly lose my mind when people talk about players being alphas and betas, and use that as an extrapolation of what their team has or is missing... like, that's all extra stuff man, that's not basketball. Talk to me about what a player does on the court, or how that's reflected in the data. Whenever people simply don't understand why something is happening, their only recourse is explaining that particular something in abstract, symbolic, terms.

I honestly think the damage that Jordan's greatness combined with him being a kind of legendary jerk has done to a lot of people needs studying in some way. It would be funny if it weren't sad, people act like Jordan's mentality and attitude are things to aspire towards despite Jordan himself being fairly open with the fact that his pathological need to compete has done a huge amount of damage to his own personal life, harming his relationships, etc. It's actually way better to be a nice person and have friends and get along with people. It's okay to do that. And you know what? You can still be a really good player and win a lot of games and championships like that!

Jordan was great - no question, whether you have him #1 or #2 he's either the greatest to ever do it, or runner up. But it feels like people have decided that because he was this icon of a player, he must also be perfect and Completely Godlike, and then they've spent a lot of time reverse engineering a set of criteria for the Perfect Player that just so happens to match a description of Jordan, rather than actually having an objective view of ''greatness''.

The alpha/beta thing drives me up the wall because it's used pretty much entirely by people trying to imply that their personal aesthetic preferences have a concrete psychological basis, when the science behind alpha/beta stuff is highly questionable and far from universally accepted in the sciences. The famous wolf study that popularised the terms was itself later rebutted by its own author for being not even accurate to wolves, and people still think it maps 1-to-1 to humans.

[Funcrusher]

so you switched up to say that lol smh....yall play to much on here...

bro im not an alt account man.... put down the tinfoil and the whiskey. I'm not even subtweeting you if that's what you genuinely think

[Funcrusher]

I honestly think the damage that Jordan's greatness combined with him being a kind of legendary jerk has done to a lot of people needs studying in some way. It would be funny if it weren't sad, people act like Jordan's mentality and attitude are things to aspire towards despite Jordan himself being fairly open with the fact that his pathological need to compete has done a huge amount of damage to his own personal life, harming his relationships, etc. It's actually way better to be a nice person and have friends and get along with people. It's okay to do that. And you know what? You can still be a really good player and win a lot of games and championships like that!

Jordan was great - no question, whether you have him #1 or #2 he's either the greatest to ever do it, or runner up. But it feels like people have decided that because he was this icon of a player, he must also be perfect and Completely Godlike, and then they've spent a lot of time reverse engineering a set of criteria for the Perfect Player that just so happens to match a description of Jordan, rather than actually having an objective view of ''greatness''.

The alpha/beta thing drives me up the wall because it's used pretty much entirely by people trying to imply that their personal aesthetic preferences have a concrete psychological basis, when the science behind alpha/beta stuff is highly questionable and far from universally accepted in the sciences. The famous wolf study that popularised the terms was itself later rebutted by its own author for being not even accurate to wolves, and people still think it maps 1-to-1 to humans.

Yeah, it's unfortunate, and I don't hate Jordan but he certainly managed to craft an entirely godlike public image that has only now begun to be broken down a bit. Him and Kobe (who i don't hate either but understand the dislike from some) were unique basketball figures in the sense that the way they framed the stories of their personal and professional lives was very political and even calculated (honestly if I were being cynical I would call it Machiavellian) and unsurprisingly those two guys left the biggest cultural imprint on basketball in the last quarter century +, both from a popularity standpoint and ideological standpoint as far as how the game is played.

[Pelicanidae]

Yeah, it's unfortunate, and I don't hate Jordan but he certainly managed to craft an entirely godlike public image that has only now begun to be broken down a bit. Him and Kobe (who i don't hate either but understand the dislike from some) were unique basketball figures in the sense that the way they framed the stories of their personal and professional lives was very political and even calculated (honestly if I were being cynical I would call it Machiavellian) and unsurprisingly those two guys left the biggest cultural imprint on basketball in the last quarter century +, both from a popularity standpoint and ideological standpoint as far as how the game is played.

I generally agree, the only thing I would add is that they're obviously not the only people to have calculated their personal and professional lives in a very political way, just perhaps the most successful and the most single-issue. Like, they're competitors. That's who they are/were. That's it, that's the one thing they wanted you to know about them: they play hard, they would rather die on court than lose, they don't care about friendship because their only priority is the Win Column, etc. It's an easy public persona to remember and very effective legacy building because it is just like a fictional character - like an anime protagonist or a Greek God, who embodies a single trait that that single trait replaces the person.

Someone else who also spends a hell of a lot of time on legacy building is Lebron, but he does it in a way that tries to also focus on things like community activism and the whole ''small town hero'' thing. This is just as political and calculated as Jordan's in a lot of ways, but it can just sometimes look less artificial because of the fact that it's more multi-faceted - the downside to that is that it's also not as instantly memorable. It doesn't have that iconographic statement to it.

Someone needs to write a book or an extended study or something into the effects of sports mythology on pop culture. I'd read it.

[AusPel]

Ingram available

[msusousaphone]

Yep. Green said BI is a go but with minute restrictions.

[Pelicanidae]

Willie Green says Brandon Ingram will play tonight vs Memphis.

It's his first game back after missing the last seven with a right hip contusion.

— Will Guillory (@WillGuillory) November 13, 2021

Yep, pump the brakes, stop the presses: questionable actually meant questionable tonight, rather than just ''out''

[Pelicanidae]

Some pre-game data here, since they've released EPM for 2021-22 now. EPM, for anyone who isn't sure, is one of the best public advanced stats out there - some argue the best, ever since Jacob Goldstein got hired by an NBA team and PIPM stopped being public.

Here's where our major minutes rank - I'm only counting guys who have played at least 150 minutes this year. Players listed in order of minutes played.

Jonas Valanciunas: +3.0, 26th in the NBA. +2.6 Offensive (91st percentile), +0.4 defensive (72nd percentile).
Devonte' Graham: +1.0, 78th in the NBA. +2.6 Offensive (91st percentile), -1.6 defensive (20th percentile)
Nickeil Alexander Walker: -1.9, 200th in the NBA. -0.3 Offensive (60th percentile), -1.6 defensive (19th percentile)
Trey Murphy III: -4.8, 308th in the NBA. -3.8 Offensively (10th percentile), -1.0 defensively (38th percentile)
Herb Jones: -1.8, 198th in the NBA. -2.6 offensive (25th percentile) +0.8 defensive (80th percentile)
Garrett Temple: -1.8, 199th in the NBA. -2.0 offensive (35th percentile), +0.1 (67th percentile)
Josh Hart: -1.8, 197th in the NBA. +0.8 offensive (77th percentile), -2.5 defensive (3rd percentile)
Brandon Ingram: -0.5, 135th in the NBA. +1.2 offensive (82nd percentile), -1.6 defensive (16th percentile)
Kira Lewis Jr: -8.3, 348th in the NBA. -5.3 offensive (1st percentile), -3.0 defensively (1st percentile). Ouch.
Naji Marshall: -6.4, 339th in the NBA. -5.3 offensive (!st percentile), -1.2 defensively (30th percentile).
Jaxson Hayes: -1.4, 176th in the NBA. -1.3 offensive (44th percentile), -0.1 defensive (63rd percentile).

Some of this is just tragic. We are giving serious minutes out of necessity to players ranked 197th, 198th, 199th, 200th, 308th, and 348th in the NBA. We have two players in the top 100, and only one in the top 50. You give Ingram a pass because he played two games hurt and missed a lot of time, his numbers last year were more impressive (if I remember rightly he finished somewhere around the top 50 last season) and we know he can get there again, health willing, but some of the other guys it's hard to see them stepping up much. Kira is so far away, he actually seems worse than last year at times, like he's taken a step backwards. Naji too, even though he's injured right now, was so much better last year than this.

I don't mind Trey's being bad so far, he's had a lot of trouble scoring we all know that but he seems to be figuring it out. Similarly, Herb is already making big defensive impact - actually leads the team in DEPM, just needs to polish up the offense which we knew would be the case with him anyway. Rookies are given that pass.

But NAW at 200th in his 3rd year is a real issue. Jax at 176th isn't much better - he was a top 120 guy last year.

Obviously we're super early in the season, lots of time to go, and people are playing outside of their 'real' roles due to the Zion and Ingram injuries. These numbers will, in some cases, likely improve; NAW's been pretty good the last two games, maybe he's figuring it out and we'll see more of that going forward, and maybe Ingram returning will allow Hart to go to the bench and provide some better rotation opportunities for bench scoring, improving how guys like Trey and Jax can play. It's possible.

The numbers look rough right now though.

[13 - 3]

Imagine if the Pelicans traded back in 2020 and drafted Desmond Bane instead of Kira.

That is the draft what if involving the Pelicans and Grizzlies that interests me.

— David Fisher (@Fish_TBW) November 13, 2021

[Pelicanidae]

Imagine if the Pelicans traded back in 2020 and drafted Desmond Bane instead of Kira.

That is the draft what if involving the Pelicans and Grizzlies that interests me.

— David Fisher (@Fish_TBW) November 13, 2021

That's a weird hypothetical given that, though Desmond Bane has been a very good shooter, he's also had some regression this year from last and doesn't play anything like the same role either.

The real question is, what if instead of drafting Kira we had drafted Maxey, who was the guy that myself and a number of other people on the board wanted at the #13 spot?

2021-22 Kira: 16/6/7.5 per 100 with 5.5 TOs. 37.1% TS (33/17/100 splits). -12.4 BPM, -8.3 EPM (348th in the league)
2021-22 Maxey: 24/5/7 per 100 with 2.1TOs, 59.3% TS (50/38/87 splits). -0.2 BPM, +0.5 EPM (95th in the league)

[JunkHead]

Imagine if the Pelicans traded back in 2020 and drafted Desmond Bane instead of Kira.

That is the draft what if involving the Pelicans and Grizzlies that interests me.

— David Fisher (@Fish_TBW) November 13, 2021

That's his draft "what if?"

Not "What if the Pels had drafted Ja Morant instead of Zion?"

Welp...

[Pelicanidae]

That's his draft "what if?"

Not "What if the Pels had drafted Ja Morant instead of Zion?"

Welp...

If we'd drafted Ja over Zion, Ja's horrendous landing technique would have exploded his knees and Zion would never have been injured. That's the Pels Life and you know it.

[Funcrusher]

Imagine if the Pelicans traded back in 2020 and drafted Desmond Bane instead of Kira.

That is the draft what if involving the Pelicans and Grizzlies that interests me.

— David Fisher (@Fish_TBW) November 13, 2021

This is not really indicative of that but yeah basically Griffin/Langdon don't know how to draft. Every single draft during their reign has looked underwhelming during/after the fact. Not one non-Zion pick have they hit on excluding the last draft because it's too early to judge those picks, though the draft itself was also grossly mismanaged in terms of maximizing assets.

[AusPel]

Trading back for Bane is what interests him? Not taking Maxey or Anthony? That's odd

[Pelicanidae]

NAW hits his first three. Has he turned the corner?

[Pelicanidae]

NAW hits again.

Has the time come?