Keep Brandon/Zion Get Rid of Willie and Griffin

[Randyfan]

Why oh Why would you get rid of Brandon. If Willie can't figure out how to get them to play together get rid of Willie.Please tell me who is dying to come here? Here are the facts:
Brandon Ingram 6 Foot 8 inches 26 years old
?For me, I love New Orleans,? Ingram says, per The Athletic's William Guillory. ?It's perfect for me and the way I want to operate. Less distractions. I can go play basketball whenever I want to. I've got direct access to the facility. I've got people close to me who can come to the gym and help me at any time. I feel connected with New Orleans and the people around me?.
Points 20.8 2nd on team
Assists 5.7 1st on team
Rebounds 5.1 3rd on team
Blocks .6 4th on team
Get a real point guard and see how they play together. If you hated watching other former pelicans tearing it up in the playoffs get rid of Brandon and see how much you like the playoffs.
My 2 cents NEVER LET HIM GO!

[Nichols]

Why oh Why would you get rid of Brandon. If Willie can't figure out how to get them to play together get rid of Willie.Please tell me who is dying to come here? Here are the facts:
Brandon Ingram 6 Foot 8 inches 26 years old
?For me, I love New Orleans,? Ingram says, per The Athletic's William Guillory. ?It's perfect for me and the way I want to operate. Less distractions. I can go play basketball whenever I want to. I've got direct access to the facility. I've got people close to me who can come to the gym and help me at any time. I feel connected with New Orleans and the people around me?.
Points 20.8 2nd on team
Assists 5.7 1st on team
Rebounds 5.1 3rd on team
Blocks .6 4th on team
Get a real point guard and see how they play together. If you hated watching other former pelicans tearing it up in the playoffs get rid of Brandon and see how much you like the playoffs.
My 2 cents NEVER LET HIM GO!

I've touched on some of these points. Players don't clamor to get acquired by small market teams. So when you have a young former all-star, who's capable of playing at an all-star level, you should probably keep him if he wants to be kept.

Issues with his game could be rectified by having a better coach, and point guard, also points I've made.

[Randyfan]

Sorry I didn't know you made these points.I am old and have suffered through management deciding to give up on players.From everything I've read Valanciunas really liked New Orleans,too. We traded for him he plays every night and is a double double. He isn't overpaid I would love to see him with a true point guard. I think he has won us more games then Willie!

[Nichols]

Sorry I didn't know you made these points.I am old and have suffered through management deciding to give up on players.From everything I've read Valanciunas really liked New Orleans,too. We traded for him he plays every night and is a double double. He isn't overpaid I would love to see him with a true point guard. I think he has won us more games then Willie!

Don't be sorry, just saying I agree with you lol. A point would make life easier for Zion, Ingram, and Val. That's something everyone on this board agrees with. There would be a lot less of giving Ingram, or Zion the ball with 7 seconds left on busted plays, and hoping they can create something. They're both talented enough to do it, but it's not an effective way to play.

[Pelicanidae]

Why trade BI?

There are a bunch of reasons but they revolve around these four points.

1) Brandon Ingram is due an enormous contract which, if paid even close to maximum value, will completely hamper the team's ability to upgrade anything meaningfully for the next 5 years. We will be stuck with exactly what we have and nothing more, and the only tradeable pieces will be guys like Trey and Herb, meaning that you could only really upgrade by selling out the same supporting cast you'd be trying to bolster. It's a self defeating prospect. Signing that contract means you will cap your ceiling at exactly where it currently is, and are agreeing to a slow degradation as the supporting pieces leave year on year, without the ability to replace them.

2) His fit with Zion is bad. We've now had a fairly significant sample size of the two on the court together, and the result has been rough. The best this team has looked in the last 5 years has been with Zion on, and Brandon out. So if you have to commit to one (Because both at once don't work) it seems to make sense to go with Zion, given the contract issue for BI and the fact that they both have clear injury problems. Zion spoke early in the season that he was uncomfortable because he was being asked to take a back seat - it's no mystery who he was supposed to take a back seat to, and it caused visible on court issues with maximising both of them.

3) His style of play has stagnated, in some cases regressed, and he appears complacent. He's stopped shooting as many threes, despite the coaches repeatedly asking for multiple seasons for the team to focus on that. He simultaneously asks for a point guard to make his job easier, but rejects playing off ball. He clashes with coaches like SVG who have pushed for him to play off ball and take more threes, with some reports linking him to SVGs firing. For him, his style of play revolves around what he prefers to do, not what the team is demanding of him, and again, when this is added to the question of whether we can pay him that contract and whether we should keep him or Zion, this is another argument against him.

4) He's the player for whom we most readily have a replacement. No, Trey is not the exact same player, but when it comes to the description of a 6'9'' scoring wing with hit-or-miss defense, we have other, younger options who better fit a modern offense in terms of shot profile. It's true that Trey isn't the passer that BI is, but he's a far superior shooter, and if you can get 85% of BI for 66% of the price, that's clearly the better value option. By comparison, when we have nobody who can replicate Zion's impact and no ability to acquire one: we've seen that when he's healthy, he's capable of being one of the 10-15 best players in basketball, top 10 in 3pt shots created, top 3 in rim pressure, and historically efficient at what he does. We just have no way to replace that at all. So again, when you consider that, plus contract, plus fit, plus play style, BI is the one who gets left on the outs.

I've never met BI. I'm sure he's a nice guy, and he seems pleasant enough in interviews. His growth since coming to LA has been huge, and it stunned me - I thought he sucked in LA, and he went from that to a top 50-ish player in the league. That's huge. In global terms, he is one of the 0.001% best players on the planet. No question. But in terms of trying to make the New Orleans Pelicans the best basketball team it can be in 2024 and onwards, competing as a unit against modern opponents running modern offenses, and with the incoming changes to the CBA that will make the salary cap even harder to navigate, it's fairly clear to me that he needs to go.

Wish him luck wherever he ends up. Just really hoping it isn't here.

And in response to the claim that we should get rid of Willie: I agree, but first of all, we're not going to (he JUST got extended, and we're still paying SVG I think), and second of all, even if you got rid of him you'd still have all of the salary and contractual issues BI leaves behind. Those problems don't vanish with Green, and neither do the fit issues.

[Randyfan]

I agree with a lot of what you say; actually I agree with everything you say but, Brandon may or may not have stagnated.1. you agree its partly Willie. 2. You agree we don't have a true point guard.3. I believe Brandon wants to be here and will give us a break on salary; I believe he will improve (his defence and assists are relatively recent) and. And here is where we completely diverge I don't think we can replace him.
However,if Trey etc improve to where we can replace him I agree with you.
PS great post

[Pelicanidae]

I agree with a lot of what you say; actually I agree with everything you say but, Brandon may or may not have stagnated.1. you agree its partly Willie. 2. You agree we don't have a true point guard.3. I believe Brandon wants to be here and will give us a break on salary; I believe he will improve (his defence and assists are relatively recent) and. And here is where we completely diverge I don't think we can replace him.
However,if Trey etc improve to where we can replace him I agree with you.
PS great post

Thanks, it's a fair question to ask - BI is a good player and a lot of people seem to really like him as a figure, beyond just what he contributes on the court. Of course you don't have to agree, but if you're asking why we might do the trade then those are the main reasons from the perspective of someone who does want to trade him.

Things do change a lot if BI takes a lower salary. Personally, I don't see it - I think there are desperate teams who might pay up, and his agent likely thinks the same - but if he's willing to resign for 3yr/$100m, for example, instead of 4yr/$208m, then things look very different. He's still being paid $33m a year in that equation, which is a hell of a lot of money, but it's in line with what he's already earning and it basically just keeps the ball rolling into the new CBA. That's far more palatable than paying him $52m a year.

I do agree it's partly Willie, I think he's proven he can build and maintain a strong team defense which is great but he's offensively incompetent and has weird player biases that make rotations awkward and minute distribution difficult. He's still a young coach so there's a chance he can grow, but given how many offensive co-ordinators he's already seen fit to just ignore, that's concerning.

I also agree that we don't have a true point, but I disagree that we definitely need one. What we need is people who can handle the ball and create for themselves and others, sure, but that doesn't have to be a point guard - Zion can do it, Jokic can do it, Lebron can do it, SGA can do it and he's not exactly a traditional point. It's all about the pressure you put on defenses and a willingness to pass. The contradiction we see is that BI claims he wants a point guard because it makes things easier for him (which may well be true) but he also hates playing off-ball and gets annoyed when anyone tries to make him, and he won't take spot-up 3s anymore either.

So it's like, you want a PG to feed you shots but you don't want anyone else to be on ball and you won't take the shots when they're fed to you. That's an incoherent position.

[luigi modelo]

I really like BI, but I agree with the points laid out above by Dae. It will certainly be an interesting few months coming up.

[JJackisangry]

It just makes sense to get rid of him. He isn’t the problem, but for us to advance we will likely have to move him. The acquisition of a certain CJ Mcollum was both beneficial and detrimental to us and made keeping Ingram that much more difficult. Personally Willie is the biggest problem teamwise but it’s not really his fault and the FO/ownership has made a ton of awful decisions. We have BI’s replacement already so it makes that much more sense.

[13 - 3]

Willie not going anywhere anytime soon. He just got a secret extension.

[new city champ]

There are versions of the future in which Brandon Ingram could stay with the Pelicans and be successful. If he alters his shot profile, like CJ did, and takes 6-8 3 point attempts a game. If he accepts a contract extension for less than the max 4-year, $208 million he is eligible to make. If he accepts that the team will play around Zion and that he will be second or even third in the team hierarchy.

None of these things seems likely to happen, though. Brandon has been asked, repeatedly, to change his shot profile and has declined to do so, even reducing the number of 3 pointers he takes the last two seasons. As someone will likely be willing to give him a max extension, there is very little chance he'd accept substantially less from the Pels no matter how much he likes it here. And I just don't think he's ready, yet, to accept that he won't be the number one option on a team, at least this team. If he's traded, I think that becomes easier for him.

Despite some of the rhetoric, this shouldn't be a personal or emotional decision for the Pels. Brandon is a good player and, in many ways, a good teammate. He likes playing here and has been a leader here when Zion disappeared on the team. But we have arrived at an inflection point long anticipated. It's the last year of Brandon's deal. You have decide if you are going to build around him--with max money and continuing to accept that he will play his way not yours--or if you are going to go in another direction. Neither option is a sure thing. You could deal Brandon and end up regretting it. He might come off this bad year with a different attitude and a renewed commitment (especially if he's traded). But based on the data up to now (which is all you can really base a decision on) the bigger downside is tieing yourself to BI for another five years, locking up huge financial resources and on-court capital in a player who just doesn't fit with your superstar.

It's a risk either way. But if you really want to try to contend for a championship, I think you need to cut bait with Brandon and try a new path upward.

[RaisingTheBar]

Why trade BI?

There are a bunch of reasons but they revolve around these four points.

1) Brandon Ingram is due an enormous contract which, if paid even close to maximum value, will completely hamper the team's ability to upgrade anything meaningfully for the next 5 years. We will be stuck with exactly what we have and nothing more, and the only tradeable pieces will be guys like Trey and Herb, meaning that you could only really upgrade by selling out the same supporting cast you'd be trying to bolster. It's a self defeating prospect. Signing that contract means you will cap your ceiling at exactly where it currently is, and are agreeing to a slow degradation as the supporting pieces leave year on year, without the ability to replace them.

2) His fit with Zion is bad. We've now had a fairly significant sample size of the two on the court together, and the result has been rough. The best this team has looked in the last 5 years has been with Zion on, and Brandon out. So if you have to commit to one (Because both at once don't work) it seems to make sense to go with Zion, given the contract issue for BI and the fact that they both have clear injury problems. Zion spoke early in the season that he was uncomfortable because he was being asked to take a back seat - it's no mystery who he was supposed to take a back seat to, and it caused visible on court issues with maximising both of them.

3) His style of play has stagnated, in some cases regressed, and he appears complacent. He's stopped shooting as many threes, despite the coaches repeatedly asking for multiple seasons for the team to focus on that. He simultaneously asks for a point guard to make his job easier, but rejects playing off ball. He clashes with coaches like SVG who have pushed for him to play off ball and take more threes, with some reports linking him to SVGs firing. For him, his style of play revolves around what he prefers to do, not what the team is demanding of him, and again, when this is added to the question of whether we can pay him that contract and whether we should keep him or Zion, this is another argument against him.

4) He's the player for whom we most readily have a replacement. No, Trey is not the exact same player, but when it comes to the description of a 6'9'' scoring wing with hit-or-miss defense, we have other, younger options who better fit a modern offense in terms of shot profile. It's true that Trey isn't the passer that BI is, but he's a far superior shooter, and if you can get 85% of BI for 66% of the price, that's clearly the better value option. By comparison, when we have nobody who can replicate Zion's impact and no ability to acquire one: we've seen that when he's healthy, he's capable of being one of the 10-15 best players in basketball, top 10 in 3pt shots created, top 3 in rim pressure, and historically efficient at what he does. We just have no way to replace that at all. So again, when you consider that, plus contract, plus fit, plus play style, BI is the one who gets left on the outs.

I've never met BI. I'm sure he's a nice guy, and he seems pleasant enough in interviews. His growth since coming to LA has been huge, and it stunned me - I thought he sucked in LA, and he went from that to a top 50-ish player in the league. That's huge. In global terms, he is one of the 0.001% best players on the planet. No question. But in terms of trying to make the New Orleans Pelicans the best basketball team it can be in 2024 and onwards, competing as a unit against modern opponents running modern offenses, and with the incoming changes to the CBA that will make the salary cap even harder to navigate, it's fairly clear to me that he needs to go.

Wish him luck wherever he ends up. Just really hoping it isn't here.

And in response to the claim that we should get rid of Willie: I agree, but first of all, we're not going to (he JUST got extended, and we're still paying SVG I think), and second of all, even if you got rid of him you'd still have all of the salary and contractual issues BI leaves behind. Those problems don't vanish with Green, and neither do the fit issues.

I think this is a pretty well thought out and excellent post.