New Orleans Pelicans: Time To Ease Off Anthony Davis

After yet another New Orleans Pelicans injury (this time Tyreke Evans), should the team start easing back Anthony Davis‘ minutes?

Nobody will openly admit it, but there’s a point in a team’s season where they have to start thinking about what’s best for the future. For the New Orleans Pelicans, they’re now 19-32 and are 6.5 games back of the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference — and they’re about to lose Tyreke Evans for the remainder of the season due to knee surgery, per Shams Charania of The Vertical.

This is just the latest in a string of bad luck for the Pelicans, who already lost Quincy Pondexter for the season to surgery on his left knee. Add in Eric Gordon‘s broken finger (out until March) and a litany of bumps and bruises to Anthony Davis and one can see that the hopes of back-to-back playoff appearances just isn’t in the cards.

In regards to Davis — superstar extraordinaire and franchise savior — the Pelicans franchise can go one of two ways with him. The first choice is to go full Kevin Garnett with him, burning him out on both ends and allowing him to rack up minutes like he’s impervious to wear and tear. The second choice is to proceed with caution, playing Davis enough to continue his development, but not enough to significantly add wear and tear.

Davis has already suffered four different minor injuries that knocked him out of games early, then forced him to miss at least his team’s next game.

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This isn’t about tanking (though the team does own it’s 2016 first-rounder), but more about preservation. Davis has missed 18, 15 and 14 games in his first three seasons in the league (and six so far this year) and with his five-year, $145 million extension set to kick in next season, the team should consider the ramifications of pushing him too hard when the ends don’t seem to justify the means.

We know what Davis brings — he’s an MVP-caliber player who will carry a healthy Pelicans squad to the playoffs on a yearly basis. Over his last six games, Davis is averaging 26.8 points, 10.8 rebounds, 1.3 steals and 1.7 blocks per game, all while shooting 53.5 percent from the field.

What’s the absolute best-case scenario for the Pelicans this season? They’d need a legendary effort from Davis to even sniff the playoffs — just to meet the historically great Golden State Warriors in the first round. Those gaudy last six game numbers have earned the Pelicans just two wins. How much more can we expect from Davis?

Even if coach Alvin Gentry decided to push Davis to his max and the team goes 22-9 to finish the season 41-41 (and sneaks into the playoffs), they’d gain no new valuable experience and they’d also lose out on a quality draft pick.

We haven’t even mentioned the fact that change is in the air, as both Eric Gordon and Ryan Anderson are unrestricted free agents at the end of the season. The team is still largely tied to Omer Asik, but Tyreke and Jrue Holiday‘s deals expire after the 2016-17 season. It seems very likely that the Pelicans of tomorrow will look drastically different than the Pelicans of today.

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So again I ask — why push Davis and play him a standard 36 minutes per game, when the risk isn’t worth the reward? Why not go into full Gregg Popovich mode and regulate his minutes throughout the rest of the season?

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