The Pelicans are playing their best basketball of the season. They just beat the hottest team in the NBA, the Hawks, who entered the game on a 19 game winning streak. Tyreke Evans and Eric Gordon have been in perpetual attack mode and are setting up others incredibly well. Some of the fans/analysts searching for a reason to explain the resurgence of the Pelicans have pointed out that not much has changed.. save for the absence of Jrue Holiday, who has been sidelined since halftime of the Jan 12 game against Boston. So the question has been raised: are the Pelicans better without Jrue Holiday?
The simple answer: no. The Pelicans certainly weren’t better when they were outscored by 8 in the 2nd half against Boston. They weren’t better without Jrue when they lost to the 76ers and the Knicks on the road. The Pelicans resurgence is better explained by these 2 things:
- The Pelicans are in the midst of their longest stretch of home games to date.
- Dante Cunningham and Quincy Pondexter are eating up the minutes once occupied by Luke Babbitt and Austin Rivers.
Starting Lineup Comparison (filtered by home games)
The Jrue-Gordon-Evans-AD-Asik starting lineup demolished its opponents in the 7 home games that it played, outscoring opponents by 22 points per 100 possessions. The Gordon-Evans-Cunningham-AD-Asik starting lineup employed post-Jrue has also been excellent in its limited time and there has been a negligible dropoff in Net Rating. To be clear, both of these lineup samples are extremely limited.
But it’s not just the starting lineup: Jrue has rated as one of the Pelicans’ best players all year, as Mason Ginsberg pointed out today.
Teams w/ 3+ players in top-30 of ESPN’s Offensive Real Plus-Minus: #Raptors (Lowry, Williams, Patterson) #Pelicans (Davis, Holiday, Evans)
— Mason Ginsberg (@MasonGinsberg) February 3, 2015
I’m not here to say that the starting lineup of Jrue-Gordon-Evans-AD-Asik optimizes the potential of all players, because Eric Gordon has been a fantastic playmaker since Jrue has gone down, and I do believe that EG getting more opportunities to create for himself/others has played a large role in his increased production. And given how little dropoff there has been in the starting unit, maybe it would be better to bring Jrue, EG, or Reke off of the bench. But to hypothesize that Jrue’s injury sparked this incredible Pelican run would ignore the evidence that the starting lineup that opened the season was extremely effective in its limited time together. Jrue played in 17 home games and the Pelicans were 12-5 in those home games.There have been 2 major things holding the Pelicans back this year: the depth and the team’s performance on the road. The depth been so much better since adding Pondexter and Cunningham. The road woes? We’ll see.
15 responses to “Quick Hits: The Pelicans Aren’t Better Without Jrue”
That early season starting lineup data & the positive change to the Pelicans’ depth is pretty much exactly what I talked about with Scott Alexander on the radio today. Solid point about the run of home games, too. Good (and necessary) post.
MasonGinsberg Then we are definitely on the same page. I just couldn’t believe the amount of people saying Jrue was the one holding us back and saying the original starting 5 couldn’t coexist. It’s like everyone forgot that we lost to Boston (2nd half), the Knicks, and the 76ers without Jrue. It has always been about the road woes and depth issues.
Are we optimizing our lineups by playing all 3 of those guards together? Maybe not, and maybe it’s a conversation that needs to be had.
Great post.
bobmurrell thanks Bob! Wasn’t about to let people grill my boy Jrue for nothing.
To add to this – I would love the conversation to start to shift over the next few weeks from: Who starts? to How many minutes does each guy get? And Who finishes?
Those two things are far more important than who gets to be on the court when the ball gets thrown up
Michael McNamara to me, the only thing that has been glaringly obvious post-Jrue besides the better depth is that this version of Eric Gordon absolutely must have the ball in his hands more than he did to start the season. How that is accomplished is of concern to me more than who starts. Each of the guards plays 34-36 min and there should be 2 of them on the court for the majority, if not all of the game.
I said this off air yesterday: I honestly think Eric Gordon is our best passer. People point to Jrue/Evans assist totals, but so much of that is having ball in their hands. Gordon is easily the best at throwing passes in tight areas, prob best skip passer as well IMO.
I know there is somewhat of a tradition of not losing your starting spot to injury, but as professional I would like to think that’s BS. I believe when a player sits for an extended period bring him back slowly makes more sense. So when Jrue comes back I would bring him off the bench – especially if the current group stays hot. Its not so much momentum per se as the rhythm the guys get playing off of each other that you don’t want to mess with unnecessarily.
Assuming everyone’s healthy: AD 36-38 min, Tyreke: 32, Gordon 32, Jrue 32. Asik 26, Ryno 28
D Cunningham 20, Q Pon 20. Ajinca 9 min. Jimmer 5min
I agree with the bringing back Jrue slowly, but he is just a stud and the most evenly balanced player we have next to AD. I prefer to just rejoice when another great player is available to add to our depth. I also think we can forget any thoughts of controversy as Tyreke already agreed to come off the bench and did great when he did (per our resident blog authors recently). This is precisely why I think our PG problem is not a problem as we have two great ones.
I do worry that a “2’s a company, and 3’s a crowd” concept could come into play again when all three are out there, with the exception I suppose when facing a 3 guard opponent. That is my only concern with the “finishing five” as Ryno at C/PF and Tyreke at SF will be outmanned on the defensive side, so we’ve have to outscore the opponent instead. Even though they may not be all stars, Cunningham/Pondexter provide their respective units with great energy and defense, while Asik works hard on the glass.
Was glad to see Monty doing some offensive/defensive substitutions late in some of our recent games, though people around me were going crazy wondering what he was doing.
I know it’s more complicated than this, but couldn’t we start with a baseline of:
32 minutes each for Holiday, Gordon, Evans at the guard positions
24 minutes each for Pondexter, Cunningham at the small forward positions
32 minutes each for Davis, Asik, Anderson at the big positions
Obviously, Davis will get more than 32 minutes again, with Asik or Anderson getting less depending on the matchup. And we may want to close with Holiday, Gordon, Evans all playing, though I am not so sure. If we are fortunate enough to have all 8 of these guys healthy, we could have a solid “playoff” rotation (March and April will be our playoffs, for all intents and purposes).
xman20002000 Michael Pellissier Michael McNamara With Jrue out, Gordon has been our best all-around GUARD. Jrue still brings much more on the defensive end in my opinion, and Davis is arguably the best all-around PLAYER on the planet right now. 3rd at worst…..
Michael Pellissier MasonGinsberg If we have 3 solid guards and 4 solid bigs, we can match up with opponents or use unconventional lineups that force the other team to match up with us. the Holliday/Evans/Gordon/Davis group with any of the other bigs should be fantastic. Or, 3 bigs with any two of the 3 guards would present a whole different challenge. Now that we have QPon and Dante we can also use a variety of conventional lineups as well without sacrificing anything. Sounds like a playoff team….
I have NO worries about the team suffering adjustment issues when Jrue returns. Jrue’s absence has forced guys into thinking about playmaking more than scoring, as they were pre-injury. Once everyone’s back, the team is going to be even stronger. I can’t wait.
sweetjazz3 Not really that complicated. I think you should add 4 minutes for AD, like you said, take away 4 from the Asik/Ryno pairing. We have a legit 8 man rotation, and that doesn’t even include Ajinca.
Pelican Poster I agree with just about everything you said. Gotta find a way to maximize talent of the 3 guards. But it’s good that we’re going on a roll without Jrue. Obviously.
NOEngineer Michael Pellissier MasonGinsberg They’re a playoff caliber team after the addition of DC and QPon for sure. I don’t know if we’re quite at the “other teams have to adjust to us” phase because most of our players aren’t versatile, but I agree that the core 4 should be a fantastic foundation for lineups.