Friggin’ Utah. They are always trying to crap all over our parade. First, they aren’t Jazzy. Second, Deron Williams never was, at any point, under any condition, AT ANY TIME, better than Chris Paul. EVER. Now, once again, they have to get all uppity and try to one-up us again. “19-10 in the last 29!!!” Their supporters shout. “Our team is better than its record was! We be going to the playoffs because we got a star badass shotblocker!”
Well guess what, Utah? The Pelicans went 18-11 in the last 29! And they did it without their star point guard who will return for . . . some number of games this year! And this time, they will have the full use of the bench mob that made it all possible for an entire season! And Anthony Davis is to Rudy Gobert as Darth Vader is to Count Dooku. It’s just embarassing to even compare them. (And his name is Rudy. I mean, come on.) So there!
. . .
Okay, now that I’ve totally exorcised my Utah demons, let’s move on to what the numbers tell us about last years post All-Star break Pelicans, who were missing Jrue, but had added Quincy, Cole and Cunningham to the rotation in relief of Salmons and Rivers. (I tried so hard to come up with a fishy pun there, but failed utterly. There’s got to be something about damned Rivers and Salmon runs, or something, right?)
The impact of those three guys was, not surprisingly, mostly to the defensive side of the ball. While the team did improve one spot from the 9th most efficient offense to the 8th most efficient, the real improvement came defensively, where the team improved from 25th to 18th. That pushed the team from outscoring teams by 0.1 points per game (yes, one tenth of a point per game) to 2.4 – a rate that is normal for a team that wins about 48 games a season.
Primarily they did this by ramping up the pressure on the perimeter, limiting opponents to fewer threes than they were taking earlier in the season, and then only allowing a FG% of 30.2% from behind the arc, second during that timespan only to the . . .wait . . . what? the UTAH JAZZ??? (God DAMNIT! Mother——-s!)
. . .
Ahem. Anyways there were some other interesting developments during that time span as well. With Jrue benchbound, the Pelicans actually improved their passing numbers. They moved from 24th to 8th in the league at assist rating, from 10th to 7th in the league in Assist to turnover ratio, Anthony Davis’ saw his assist rate leap from 9% to 15.8% during that time, and Evans saw similar improvement as both players played larger roles initiating offense. In perhaps a related matter, the Pelicans eFG% went from 16th to 8th.
Perhaps unsurprisingly – with all that attention to perimeter shooters, the offset to all the good news is that with those three guys, the Pelicans went from a strong rebounding team to a middling one. Ranked 6th overall (2nd OFF, 12th DEF) the Pelicans fell to 15th during those last 29 games, right behind the . . . damnit, no! Not the UTAH JAZZ?!?
(Okay, I lied, the Magic were 14th, and the Jazz were . . . 2ND?!? That is even worse. God damnit! Friggin’ UTAH!)
. . .
Ok. That does make me wonder how this team will look under Gentry. It’s hard to run when your team can’t rebound, but it’s equally hard to run when your team can’t defend. The answer may be to limit time given to Quincy and Cole at the same time – as their line-ups tended to be disastrous on the boards. Still, however you slice it, Gentry has a roster with at least 10 reasonable options to work with – which is a hell of a lot better than the team Monty was working with to start last year. And, with those three guys on board, he also can at least put the semblance of an NBA defense on the court at all times – something that was near impossible for the first half of last year.
And, improving from 18th to, say, a respectable 10th-12th also seems a lot more reasonable too. And that should be all that is necessary to make this team push for homecourt.
Nice to be talking about that, isn’t it?
9 responses to “Mining the Numbers: Quincy, Cole and Cunningham”
Let me help you out: “but had added Quincy, Cole and Cunningham to the rotation instead of trying to keep swimming upstream with Salmons and Rivers.
Both QPon & DC are tweeners who are especially weak rebounders when playing their small-ball: QPon at the 3 and DC at the 4. My own sense: QPon can play the 2 easier than DC the 3; this is also a reason why DC is not the ideal 4 in a small-ball lineup. Alas, we don’t have an ideal 4 for such lineups, at least not yet.
…..instead of continuing to flounder with salmons and rivers?
Spec3333 i like it but might add
after swimming up stream for the first half of the season with salmon and rivers, the late season trades for Quincy, Cole and Cunningham spawned a surge in bench production for the Pelicans
I dont think the Jazz make the playoffs. But I could be wrong. Despite a lot of good to great teams from 1 -7.in the west, there seems to be a big drop off between the top seven and the next 5 teams. The Jazz just seem kind of gimmicky and I think nobody was really game-planning for them to the degree that will happen this season. we shall see. As far as the rest of the bottom of the west, I think the nuggets are out of the playoffs and want to be out. I think Trailblazers are likely out. The rest of the teams are in the running for number 8. The Lakers are a huge long-shot, but I will not rule out the possibility of Hibbert producing elite rim protection and Kobe doing Kobe things (both good and bad) and the somehow sneaking in. It does seem far-fetched. The Kings sure look like a tire fire, but Boogie is a force and Utah does not have a player on his skill level. The Mavs are Zombies have a Dirk and a great coach – if the hang around a late season surge with health for Parsons and Mathews could definitely nudge them into the playoff. The Suns have become a tire fire also, but have a lot of talent and some veteran leadership in Chandler who can still play at a high level. The team I’m picking is the T-wolves. Does it make a lot of sense, probably not. But despite a relative lack of shooting their depth chart looks pretty good. PG Rubio/A Mller/Tyus Jones, SG K Martin/Z Levine, SF A Wiggins/ S Muhammad, PF K Garnett/KA Towns. C: Dieng/ Pekovick. Take a look at that Jazz line-up and tell me how they win 40 games. I cannot see it. I guess well see.
I am so ready for Hoops Season. Ryan thanks for giving us a little nugget.
Not going to mention the rivers salmons propensity to get smoked?
dschmid4 not a bad pick. I just don’t see any two way players in mining yet. Wiggins, Rubio, and Garnett can defend but are weak offensively the rest of the team are awful defenders and decent offensively. We’ve seen how hated it can be to mesh that together. You push me for a pick, I guess ill take Utah and it’s defense. At least they could be elite at something.
Houpgarou …Instead of fishing for a good performance from a Salmons Rivers pairing…