Show Me Your Vanishing Act One More Time

Hoo boy, the Wizards fucking STINK. People saw murmurs of a Clippers team in Lob City that didn’t sing campfire songs with one another after games and fans thought it was a war zone. The prop bet for when a Wizard is going to throw a punch at his own teammate is now off the board.

Currently at 5–11, nothing about this Wizards team works. John Wall has quickly gone from high flying magic man to some kind of Westbrook-ian misanthrope who is both lightning quick and unfathomably immobile at the same time (among the leaders in average speed, one of my favorite obscure NBA stats, Wall ranks 8th from the bottom. He’s ahead of the likes of 90 year old Dirk Nowitzki, Udonis Haslem and Marreese Speights (To be fair, James Harden is also, amazingly in this grouping. I imagine that this has to do with him staying parked behind the three point line in addition to letting Chris Paul initiate, but I doubt Wall is at a standstill for the same reason. If he is, hoooooo boy.))

Austin Rivers, Jeff Green and Dwight Howard are all on the same team. That happened. Someone assembled this team on purpose. It shouldn’t be any surprise that nothing about these Wizards lends itself to winning basketball, even with an extremely solid trio in Wall, Bradley Beal and Otto Porter.

There isn’t a team in the association that needs to blow it up more. The Wizards have made the playoffs three out of the last four years, but their trips are usually short lived and full of frustration. With an Eastern Conference that appears to be getting better (for real this time!), it might be wise for the Wizards to consider bottoming out and have a fire sale. They’re in a rare place where they’re undeniably bad, and yet 29 other teams see several different assets they would like to salvage. Their big 3 would definitely net three good deals if they wanted to completely salt their earth, but it’s not hard to see at least two of them gone, alone with a few of their role players someone might overpay for.

As Dell Demps elongates his safari telescope and takes aim at the Wizards, he might see a man he’s been LONG linked to in Otto Porter. For years, NBA caliber wings have eluded Dell. We will always have the spring and summer of 2018 where it was debated if Cousins for Porter was a fare net for both teams.

Porter isn’t just a solid wing, he’s probably one of the finest role players in the league. Finally, a wing with solid measurements who doesn’t really hurt you in any way. You’d have to go back years to find a SF for the Pelicans who fit that description.

Porter’s eFG% hovers around 50% with a respectable volume of 3 pointers (he launches about 4 a game consistently for his career). He’s a decent FT shooter, something the Pels have been lacking this year, though he’s not even averaging one foul shot a game right now.

While he’d finally plug a hole that has sunk the Pelicans time and time again, Porter is probably at his most un-attractive right now. While one of the NBA’s great glue guys, he’s making max contract money. It’s just a whole heck of a lot of cash for a guy who’s best selling point is that he isn’t really bad at much.

I’d be much more intrigued by Beal. Beal, quietly just became the youngest player in NBA history to reach 900 3 pointers . He’s got the range and aggressive scoring mentality that the Pelicans so desperately need. The problem being he probably wouldn’t work being deployed on the wing like the Pelicans do with Moore in their 3-guard lineups. While he’s awesome as a 2-guard, it would shift Jrue back to PG, which isn’t ideal. Despite Holiday being 2nd in the NBA in assists, him being off-ball allows him to be more aggressive, where he is at his best. However, having someone who is as scoring hungry as Beal to run with Jrue should mitigate a lot of that.

Jrue, Beal and AD are all completely legitimate offensive threats, and a fresh change of scenery and a chance to enter his prime (He’s still only 25) in a stable organization is a bet I’d be intrigued to make. What the Wizards could ask for Beal is anyone’s guess, especially if the season progresses in this way and they get worse and worse. We’ll assume that the Moore, Mirotic and a 1st is the baseline for all of the Pelicans big targets. I think the Pels could even subtract assets should it get to a point where the Wizards are truly in the NBA’s gutter.

It also seems like Wall and Howard stir the pot as far as the Wizards discontent producers, but I’d be curious to know if Beal adds a bit to the drama.

I’d be willing to take a shot on him because I think he’s a great, still ascending player, but his basketball fit isn’t outstanding. Porter is almost the opposite, I’m lukewarm on him as a player but the fit is extremely obvious. In any case, the Wizards are standing on the precipice, in danger of cratering into NBA limbo. A change is coming, and the Pels could be close to the front of the line for the going-out-of-business-sale.

It Aint Easy Being Green

Draymond? Nooooo. The Warriors? They wouldn’t.

…… Would they?

The Warriors are such a god damn basketball machine that it’s completely reasonable to shut your eyes, tune them out and understand that this team has more gears to shift into that other teams can possibly dream of.

Still, this Draymond Green thing appears to be….. a thing. It might lose the Warriors Kevin Durant, or it might be nothing! Could it possibly land another team the defensive linchpin of the Warriors dynasty?

This article isn’t here to pussyfoot around the likely trades. Your Kent Bazemore’s interest me not. Let’s assume that this Draymond trade is causing a palpable rift in the locker room. Humor me, and let us examine the case for the Warriors to blow Draymond out of the air lock:

Green, while a great energy guy, is no longer the heart and soul of the Warriors. Steph Curry has taken the mantle as their best player, their face and their heart. Hell, when I think Warriors basketball, I think that Klay Thompson energizing people with scoring outbursts is probably more valuable than what Green can do as a small ball center now. The “death lineup” isn’t special anymore, even if it is still effective. The Warriors have an interesting collection of big men as well. Jordan Bell was the belle of the ball last year, looking like a mini Draymond at times with a diversified skill set and athleticism to spare. He’s started slow this year, but you’d be a fool to sell stock on him. Damian Jones has been a fun fit at center, because of course he is. Even Jonas Jerebko has given Golden State quality minutes in spots. All-NBA center DeMarcus Cousins is also waiting (and probably pouting) in the wings.

Draymond has also seen his offensive skills decline in recent years, despite pressure on the offense largely being taken away from him. As a legitimate 4th option, Green is shooting 23%(!!!!!) on catch and shoot jumpers this year. His 3 point shooting numbers are in a complete free fall since the 2015–16 season. And this guy kicks people in the nuts! Fucked up!

There’s a case. Maybe it’s not a strong one, considering Green could just as easily be the jenga piece to make the Warriors topple over should they need a defensive stop in the playoffs. Winning also cures all, and the Warriors are going to win quite a few more games. The season is still so young. But it’s impossible to ignore the question if Green has simply rustled too many feathers.

So why would Dell place a call?

During the infant stages of this Pelicans season, we’re seeing the same narratives about AD start to surface again. “He isn’t an alpha.” “He can’t be the heart of a championship team, he needs others to prop him up.” This couldn’t sound weirder to the NBA outsider who never tunes in to watch the Pelicans but thirsts endlessly for The Unibrow. But the sentiment didn’t come from nowhere. It doesn’t quite sit well with me considering last years post-Boogie run was possibly the best basketball we’ve ever seen from Davis. It does lead me to believe, though, that AD does need more energy guys.

For as fun and brilliant as this Pelicans team can be, at their worst, they come off as completely toothless. No bite. No tenacity. A bunch of choir boys. And that’s fine to an extent, but when your starting lineup up and down, including your best two players, are extremely passive in both game and personality, that leads to serious troughs and trenches in energy. It’s part of why the Pelicans come out sluggish almost on a nightly basis. It’s weird to say that the duo that threw down a monster putback dunk on Jusuf Nurkic and then the other POINTED AT HIM TO LET HIM KNOW WHO’S HEAD THAT SHIT JUST HAPPENED ON (AHHHHHHHHHHHH I LOVE BASKETBALL) don’t really have it in them to scream in someone’s face and flex on someone like they’re Michael Thomas in front of a gym mirror. You need guys like that. All the great teams have them.

Who is the heart and soul of the Pelicans? Is it AD? We know he’s the best player, but is he there leader? The fact that it’s open for interpretation is a red flag, however small.

Time for a heart transplant.

Draymond Green, once thought to be the trade chip that would send AD to the Warriors, would pair very nicely with AD. A defensive trio of Green, Jrue and AD is absolutely fucking bananas. All three of them could finish in the top 10 in DPOY voting. I can’t think of anything that would suck more than being picked up by Jrue Holiday at half court, getting your ass kicked trying to get around him and then you have Green and AD lurking. It’d be like the NBA’s version of the Legion of Boom Seahawks. When was the last time we saw a team with that much elite defensive ability take the floor together at the same time?

Green also could see his offensive stats revived to an extent in New Orleans. Gentry got objectively the best offensive seasons from Green, and reuniting the two could be the shot in the arm both parties are looking for. Take this excellent article from the off season over at Bourbon Street Shots introducing the concept of ‘Gentry Ball’. This looks at Gentry’s offense in the context of emphasizing efficient shots early in the shot clock, whereas the titular “Morey Ball” valued three pointers over all other shot selections. Green is an interesting fit here

Let’s take a look at when some of the Pelicans most important players are taking their shots. This is data from this season, focusing specifically on the % of shots that happen in the first 9 seconds of the shot clock (What NBA.com labels as “Very Early” and “Early” territory)

Anthony Davis — 42.1% of shots coming within the first 9 seconds

Jrue Holiday — 49.5%

Nikola Mirotic — 48.8%

The reason why the Pelicans led the league in pace last year and are again in the top 5 this year is because of this commitment to break-neck basketball. Now, let’s take a look at how many of Green’s shots are early in the clock.

Draymond Green — 39.8%

Pretty quick, but let’s also take a look at the last season Gentry coached Green in 2015, Green’s best offensive season by a sizable margin.

2014–2015 Draymond Green — 46.1% of shots in the first 9 seconds of the shot clock

There it is.

Green is one of the NBA’s unique talents in that he can guard 1–5 at a DPOY level despite his size, is a terrific passer for his position and thrives at such a high pace.

While writing this, I had a lot of internal debate: Is Green a better fit for this team than Nikola Mirotic? Is he even a better overall player at this point in time? I think it’s a very interesting debate. Losing Mirotic’s shooting would be rough for the Pelicans considering they’re already in the bottom half of the league in 3 point shooting. Draymond won’t shoot at the same volume and won’t even sniff the efficiency Mirotic is giving you now.

Yes, Green is probably unavailable. Yes, he shoots like he’s wearing a backpack.

Adding Draymond would be more of an intangibles type of move. Getting someone to hound AD, to be that vocal leader while also giving you a legitimate three headed defensive monster could be a move that puts the Pelicans over the top. An additional trade for a Korver type of player would need to be made on the side, but should Golden State feel the need to possibly move Green, I think New Orleans is an interesting spot.

Sicker Than Your Average

How good is Spencer Dinwiddie?

A top 3 finish in Most Improved Player voting last year wasn’t enough for him to unseat D’Angelo Russel as the Nets guard of the present and future. And in the big picture, that’s probably the right call. Russel still has a very good player in him somewhere, and we seem to still be figuring out just what Dinwiddie is at the same time he is. He hasn’t started in a single game this year for the Nets, even with the Caris LeVert injury.

Dinwiddie is a lengthy guard who isn’t an especially prolific shooter (from the field or otherwise) but has a knack for hitting big shots while also being good for a handful of assists a game. He was 16th in the NBA last year in total points scored in clutch time, more than the likes of Donovan Mitchel, Durant, Paul George, Joel Embiid, Jayson Tatum and Kyle Lowry to name a few. Take my word for what it is, but I watched a decent amount of Nets basketball last year before I moved away from NY, and Dinwiddie impressed me almost every time I watched him.

But how good is he? Is he really a needle mover? Have we already seen the best Dinwiddie has to offer? Not even the Nets seem to really have a concrete idea.

What we do know is that the Pelicans are in desperate need of another ball handler. While Elfrid Payton was extremely fun for the short time he’s been healthy this season, the Pelicans need more help. Getting Dinwiddie and shifting Payton to the second unit would do wonders to help the Pelicans bench unit, which FAR too often can involve playing 2 on 5 or even 1 on 5 on offense. He’d be yet another viable scoring option with good size who can be a closer for the Pelicans nightly.

Dinwiddie hardly fits in with the other high profile targets in this article, but I think he’s by far the most available and the most cost effective while also being more of an impact guy then I imagine someone like Bazemore or Korver etc. would be. There is even more time for Dinwiddie to figure out just how good he can be. Is there All-Star potential here? Probably not. But he’s also more than just a volume scorer the league produces a handful each year. I like his pairing next to Jrue as a guy who can be a lead ball handler but also a legitimate scoring threat, something Payton nor Rajon Rondo were able to provide.

It’s probably the most attractive trade here because the Nets are in a precarious spot with him. A first round pick might get the job done, leaving the Pels core in tact. A lineup of Dinwiddie, Jrue, Wesley Johnson, Mirotic and Davis has a hell of a lot of size, allowing the Pelicans to keep Doing It Big.

The only risk factor involved is wondering what psychological trauma you might inflict on Dinwiddie by telling him he won’t be able to wear the unbelievably cool Nets City jerseys anymore. If someone took that away from me I don’t know what I’d do.

I’d also be interested in seeing if the Nets would send more players for more assets. How valuable is someone like Joe Harris to them? What about Rondae Hollis-Jefferson? The Nets finally own their own pick this year, so the potential to add real talent with the intent to develop is finally an option. It could make them more willing to part with guys who are essentially stop gaps.

Walk Hard

With Jimmy Butler in Philly, there just aren’t that many true All-Star caliber players that are available..

Kemba Walker might be the only exception due to his pending free agency.

For as much as the Pelicans have been criticized for putting bad teams around AD, I always thought it was odd the Hornets never seemed to get that much guff. Sure, Walker isn’t in the same tier of player that AD is in, but the Hornets front office moves and player development have been bottom of the barrel.

The parade of first round picks that have disappointed seem to stretch on for an entire decade. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist is essentially the same exact player in 2018 as he was in 2012 when they drafted him. Cody Zeller is the poster child of someone who is just good enough to hang around. The Hornets turned down a godfather offer for the rights to Frank Kaminsky. At the time it was ill advised. Today it is a complete disaster of a missed opportunity. Malik Monk is still so young, but the times where he looks like he belongs on a basketball court are so very few and far between. It’s looking very grim for a guy who once was thought to be the steal of that lottery on draft night.

The crew of the S.S Michael Jordan has drowned even faster considering they seem to be using anchors as flotation devices, handicapping the ability to do anything by signing players to god awful contracts. Nicolas Batum will make $27 million dollars in 2021 despite not being good for years. Bismack Biyombo is making $17 million. Marvin Williams and MKG are similarly ineffective players who make north of $15 million. It almost feels like the Hornets have more cap space than any other team in the league, those numbers can’t possibly all add up correctly. But they do. And Tony Parker is also here for some reason.

The Hornets are going nowhere fast, not even in the same category as the Wizards who were good enough to make the playoffs each year to no fanfare. The Hornets war chest of high draft capital has not produced a single asset that appears to be worth holding onto aside from rookie Miles Bridges.

A few paragraphs ago I suggested the Wizards needed to blow it up. The Hornets have barely anything to blow up. The dilapidated house that is the Hornets is falling apart at the sign of a strong breeze.

Not much has been made of Kemba’s impending free agency. It’s not clear really what his intentions are. Just like with Butler, teams are gun shy about trading for impending free agents.

But we’ve been over this. Dell Demps has no fear. Though he’s less like Daredevil and more like those kids that literally can’t feel pain and burn their hands on stoves.

A trade for Walker would probably look a lot like the proposed one for Butler, though skewing more towards picks. I imagine something like Julius Randle (While Mirotic is better, it doesn’t seem like a stretch four is what Charlotte wants going forward) Moore, Hill (To make the numbers work and give the tank a fresh pair of treads) and a first round pick could be enough to pry Kemba loose.

What would that mean for the Pelicans?

If Dinwiddie is the unknown entity, Kemba is the known one. A truly prolific scorer, who recently dropped 60 in a thriller with the 76ers. I was able to catch that entire game and it reminded me so much of AD’s 59 point effort vs the Pistons. The Pelicans needed every single one of his points, and it barely resulted in a winning effort. The Hornets box score for that game was downright disgusting. The Pelicans would probably also have to take on one of the Hornets horrible contracts. It might as well be their worst, since it’s a position of need. Nic Batum, come on down!

Kemba would make the Pelicans starting 5 of Walker-Holiday-Johnson-Mirotic-AD one of the five best in basketball. I also think Walker has enough dog in him (Similar to Green and Cousins) to get AD’s mind right. Having an offensive threat like Walker to handle the ball next to Jrue instead of Rondo or Payton is like going from a 2000 Dodge Dakota to one of the Mass Effect Relays. The Pelicans need more shooting, and Kemba is legitimately the type of player who could punch a hole into the top 10 in that category by himself. He is literally doing it right now. The Hornets are 6th in 3 point shooting at about 12 made 3’s a game. Kemba is making four of them.

A deal for Walker could mean a new big 3 for the Pelicans going forward. It would create a hell of a lot of pressure for the Pelicans to win this year, and they’d have to do it stripping away a lot of their wing depth, Randle and draft capital, but adding another all-star caliber player to an already fantastic starting lineup could life the Pelicans to new heights, while also re-affirming to AD that this front office will do anything for him.