Anthony Davis is a freak. He has the best PER in the league thus far (33.3) and is outdoing the lofty preseason expectations that were placed on him. Blah, blah, blah. We all know the sheer joy we feel inside each time we watch him play the game of basketball.
The question for the New Orleans Pelicans is: How is it possible to have a player playing at the level that Davis is right now and still be below the .500 mark?
Well, for one thing, it doesn’t help matters that the Pelicans reside in the western portion of the United States and therefore have unluckily been placed in the most dominant conference in all of sports not named the Southeastern Conference. Davis, despite his heroics, is incapable of leading this team to the playoffs all by himself.
New Orleans has been in search of some form of consistency (outside of The Brow) all season long. Each time they seem to be turning a corner with a big victory (such as a road win over the San Antonio Spurs) they come back with a loss or string of losses to ruin their momentum.
More from Hoops Habit
- The 5 most dominant NBA players who never won a championship
- 7 Players the Miami Heat might replace Herro with by the trade deadline
- Meet Cooper Flagg: The best American prospect since LeBron James
- Are the Miami Heat laying the groundwork for their next super team?
- Sophomore Jump: 5 second-year NBA players bound to breakout
They haven’t had a winning streak surpassing two games so far this season and the inability to string a streak of victories together has lead to the somewhat disappointing 9-10 start.
As of Dec. 9, the Pelicans are an outstanding 7-1 against teams that are below the .500 mark, with their only loss coming against the Nuggets in the not-so-friendly confines of Denver. Their average margin of victory in such games is a solid 16.9 points per game.
Sure, that stat may be inflated thanks to a 48-point victory over the Timberwolves and playing against the Lakers twice, but New Orleans is beating up on the teams that they are supposed to take care of. That is a good quality for an ascending young team to have.
On the contrary, New Orleans is a miserable 2-9 against teams with a better-than-.500 record with their only victories coming against the aforementioned Spurs in a game that Gregg Popovich elected to play Cory Joseph and Aron Baynes during crunch time and the pseudo playoff contender Sacramento Kings.
In their nine losses, New Orleans is averaging a rough 11.8 margin of defeat, with the 27-point thrashing handed to them by Golden State being their worst.
Beyond the margins of defeat, the way New Orleans looks outmatched in some of these matchups is not encouraging. Golden State was toying with the Pelicans last Thursday night, the Memphis Grizzlies stifled the offense with minimal resistance and the Cleveland Cavaliers found major holes in the defense en route to a 118-point explosion.
In fairness, most of the games against better than .500 teams were on the road, which is a difficult task for any young team to handle on a consistent basis. It will be interesting to see how they respond to the upper echelon of the NBA when they role through the Smoothie King Center in the upcoming months.
My worry for New Orleans is that their front office mentality of entering win now mode does not match the roster that they have currently constructed.
They already lost Nerlens Noel and this year’s first-round pick for the services of Jrue Holiday, who is a nice player, but questions are starting to seep out about whether or not that trade was the correct move.
At the rate that things are going, the Omer Asik trade will most likely cost New Orleans their 2015 first round pick as well despite the fact that it is top-three and 20-30 protected. Two straight years without a first-round pick is a tough pill to swallow for a young team on the rise.
The jury is still out on Holiday and Asik (who is a free agent as the end of the season), but their price tags make the Pelicans inflexible for both this season and years to come. That means something in a league where nearly every team is flowing with cap space.
Luckily, the cap is going to expand to astronomical heights with each passing year because of the new TV deal (maybe even reaching $90 million by 2016) which could help New Orleans address their lack of wing depth in the near future.
Normally having a player of Davis’ caliber leaves you with a surefire 45 wins and in most years, a date in the playoffs. The treacherous terrain of the Western Conference will most likely leave a 45-win team in the lottery instead of gaining a taste of playoff basketball. Just ask the Phoenix Suns about that.
Unless the Pelicans continue their superiority over the NBA’s cellar dwellers, while finding consistency against the elite teams, they will become some version of last season’s Suns. Except without the financial flexibility and lottery pick at their disposal.
In order for Anthony Davis to relish in the spotlight of the playoffs, the Pelicans must find ways to consistently string together victories.
And quickly.