New Orleans Pelicans: Appreciating Quincy Pondexter

By Owen Sanborn | Jun 6, 2015

Apr 7, 2015; New Orleans, LA, USA; New Orleans Pelicans guard Quincy Pondexter (20) against the Golden State Warriors during a game at the Smoothie King Center. The Pelicans defeated the Warriors 103-100. Mandatory Credit: Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports /

In today’s NBA game, having a so-called “3-and-D” type of wing player is more of a necessity than a luxury. With so much of the league’s talent being infused along the perimeter, having an athletic, rangy defender with monkey arms is an important cog in the quest to at least slow down the NBA’s elite wing scorers.

Have you noticed how many 6’7″ dudes the Golden State Warriors have on their roster? It’s not by accident.

Bruce Bowen is one name that immediately comes to mind when you think of this specific type of player and other players such as a Trevor Ariza (although Ariza is a much more capable playmaker off the dribble) have followed in his footsteps to make a long career for themselves.

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The Boston Celtics are in the midst of morphing Jae Crowder into an Ariza clone and there will be plenty of other players of the same mold sprouting up throughout the league as time goes on.

This is just the direction in which the NBA game is going.

Every team wants their best ball handler running spread pick and roll at the top of the key with their 3-and-D wing standing in the corner, their two-guard (or point guard for a team such as the Houston Rockets) stretching the defense on one of the wings, their stretch four stretching the defense on the other wing and an athletic center with the ability to slice through the defense during the roll portion of a pick and roll.

Tyson Chandler was one of the pioneers of this practice while playing with Chris Paul in New Orleans and then later with Rick Carlisle and the Dallas Mavericks. DeAndre Jordan has made a career out of honing the same craft.

There is tremendous value in having a 3-and-D wing to make that kind of offense flow correctly. This is why Quincy Pondexter and his ludicrously manageable contract (he is signed through the 2017-18 season and will not eclipse a salary of $3.9 million) is a coup to have for the New Orleans Pelicans.

The acquisition of Pondexter was an afterthought when news initially broke in January. Sure, he looked like the kind of guy you would cast to play a flirty fitness instructor in a romantic comedy, but nobody seemed to care.

The bigger story in the media was the narrative that Austin Rivers was being shipped out of town to Boston and Jeff Green was going to be in Memphis. Pondexter, and his atrocious shooting percentage at the time (I recall it being around 29 percent from three-point range), was an insignificant addition in my head.

Well, I was wrong. Pondexter found his shooting stroke from the corners, forced defenses to change the way they defended the Pelicans and replaced Dante Cunningham‘s unexplainable one-foot-in-front-of-the-line-long-range-two-point shots with three-pointers. His shot chart says it all, as he hit 52 percent of his shots from the right corner. That isn’t quite Steph Curry efficient, but hey, it’ll do.

As the season went on, defenders learned to respect Pondexter in the corners, leading to more space for Anthony Davis to operate. Remember that few-week stretch when Davis was putting up games with five and seven assists? Most of those were to an open Pondexter in the corner after a high pick-and-roll where defenders are put into the precarious position of either leaving Pondexter open or giving Davis a wide open elbow jumper. One can only pray to the Basketball Gods in that situation.

Watch Omer Asik hit Pondexter for a wide open corner three during this sequence:

Courtney Lee elected to show help on the rolling Asik, allowing him to make the easy pass over to Pondexter in the corner. Had Lee (correctly) chosen to stay tight with Pondexter, then Asik would have had an high percentage opportunity to attack the rim.

Earlier in the season when Tyreke Evans was stashed in the corner, defenders would crash down on the rolling big man and take away airspace to force turnovers or contested shots. They were happy to let Evans hoist an open three because that isn’t his strength. The entire framework of the offensive flow is enhanced just by putting Pondexter in the corner.

Spacing is fun.

At the end of the day, I may be embellishing Pondexter’s abilities if I put him into a similar class as Ariza. However, it isn’t a stretch to say that the Pelicans have a very useful player in his prime that knows his role and will contribute accordingly in the upcoming years with a very reasonable contract.

I mean, how much money is DeMarre Carroll going to get on the open market this summer? From what I’ve read, $10-12 million seems to be the floor. I would MUCH rather have Q-Pon (I hate when people take shortcuts with nicknames like that) for his going rate of under $4 million per season for three more seasons than four seasons of Carroll at $11 million per.

3-and-D wings are all the rage in the NBA right now and the Pelicans are fortunate to have some version of one in Quincy Pondexter.

Next: Golden State Warriors: 5 Lessons From NBA Finals Game 1

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