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Pelicans Scoop: Needs
18 games in – what do you categorize as the Pelicans’ biggest position of need? Shamit – With news that Elfrid Payton is now out for 6 weeks, the Pelicans need a solution on the ball handling front. Currently Jrue Holiday is the sole player who can consistently apply pressure on defenses with his […]
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Pelicans Scoop: Systemic Concerns
Do you have any systemic concerns around the team? Shamit – Defense is a concern at the moment but I think it is a symptom of changing personnel. With injuries and experimental rotations, it is difficult to establish consistency and an identity on that end of the floor. I do believe it will […]
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In The NO Episode 6: The Pelicans Beat The Brakes Off The Rockets
First pod of the season. Mason and Shamit react to the Pelicans whooping the Rockets on opening night. Listen on iTunes Listen on Spotify RSS Feed Direct Download
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In The NO Episode 5: Interview with Pelicans Performance Consultant, Mike Guevara
Photo Credit: Ashley Amoss Meet the one of the most innovative guys in sports. Mike G is a Performance Consultant with the New Orleans Pelicans as well as the personal Performance Coach to Jrue Holiday. Coach Mike walks us through how he got his start, what kind of preparation goes into the offseason, what to […]
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In The NO Episode 4: Okafor, Schedule, and Ticket Sales
Part 1: Part 2: In Part 1 of the latest episode of In the NO, Shamit and Mason kick things off by discussing the addition of Jahlil Okafor. They then pivot to the recently released NBA regular season schedule, and then talk about the Pelicans’ over-under in comparison to some other Western Conference playoff hopefuls. […]
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In The No Episode 3: Gentry Ball, Decompression, and Targets
Shamit and Mason discuss the happenings of the offseason. We talk about Gentry Ball, targets, and take a look into the brief future. Listen on iTunes Listen on Spotify RSS Feed Direct Download
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Introducing “Gentry Ball”: A Look Into Early Offense and The Fit of Elfrid Payton
When Elfrid Payton was first signed, there was a lot of hullabaloo about his fit. As the dust settled, it became clear the idea was to put him in an up-tempo system that allowed him to play in the open floor. This message was reiterated by Dell Demps at the press conference introducing Payton and […]
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In The No Episode 2: We Have An Emergency
Shamit and Mason bring Mac out of retirement for this one. Boogie leaves the Pelicans to join the Warriors. Rondo leaves the Pelicans to join the Lakers. Oh hey Julius Randle, welcome to New Orleans. Oh boy. Listen on iTunes Listen on Spotify RSS Feed Direct Download
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The Midnight Dance
Intro At midnight July 1, the gates to the NBA’s biggest ball fly open and everyone is looking for that special someone to take to the dance floor. Like any dance, your popularity and attractiveness play a huge role in finding a partner to tango with. If popularity were market size in the NBA, you […]
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In The NO Episode “1”: Shamit and Mason Discuss the Pelicans Offseason
In the first installment of In The NO post Ryan and Mac, Shamit and Mason take a stab at the Pelicans’ offseason. We discuss the draft, European prospects, Boogie, and other offseason questions.
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Rules For a Boogie-Less Offseason
Every organization needs a contingency plan if the primary option does not pan out. Make no mistake, DeMarcus Cousins is plan A. As I detailed last week, the Pelicans best path to talent is through Cousins. It is extremely unlikely that any player near Cousins’ caliber will be available to them this summer, and […]
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All Things Considered: Boogie Edition
In November while the Pelicans’ season was very much getting off the ground I wrote about “The Big Conundrum”. This piece revolved around the success of Davis centric lineups and posed the question of how best to optimize the Davis and Cousins pairing given the success of the aforementioned lineups. I had optimistically hoped […]
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Jrue Holiday 2018 Defensive Highlights
Jrue deserves to be First Team All Defense this year. The Pelicans are a whopping 9.2 points per 100 possessions better with Jrue on the court – this surpasses DPOY candidates like Joel Embiid and Rudy Gobert Jrue leads the league in blocked shots for a guard 6’4″ and under How good has Jrue been […]
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10 Things the Pelicans Have Done Well for 10 Straight Wins
The Pelicans have won 10 straight games and are coming off their best stretch of basketball in over 5 years. No win through this streak has been the same and the Pelicans have adapted to each challenge presented to them. There have been a lot of factors that have contributed to this success and I […]
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Let Me Explain the Spain (Pick and Roll)
Intro It’s not easy to reinvent your offense mid season after a component as big DeMarcus Cousins goes down. Yet the Pelicans are trying to transform on the fly all while trying to accommodate Nikola Mirotic and a changing roster. In this post, I will walk you through a set the Pelicans have started using […]
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Mulling Miller
Should Miller be getting more minutes? A different spot in the rotation? If not now, when? Mason: It looks like things are already trending that way: Miller has played 30+ regulation minutes in each of his past 3 games. Gentry appears to have landed on one of two crunch time lineups depending on the matchup: […]
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Discussing Hill’s Role
How to optimize Hill, and will he be in that role? Michael Pellissier: I think Solomon Hill is best utilized as a small-ball 4. Hill had the 10th worst points per possession mark in the league last season of guys qualified for the MPG leaderboard: he is not the “driver” or “slasher” he is sometimes […]
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A Deep Dive into Rotations
The Bourbon Street Shots crew did a deep review of lineup data in an effort to tackle the Pelicans’s inconsistency issues. We can’t control effort and motivation, but we damn sure can look at our spreadsheets and figure out who clicks with who. And that’s exactly what we did. Below is a tag team effort […]
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An Intro to Shot Selection
Introduction This is a cursory post on shot selection. Many of you may already be familiar with concepts explained below, so bear with me. For those who aren’t, this post aims to contextualize the value of 3 point shots. A lot of people wonder why our star big men have moved further away from the […]
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The Big Conundrum
A look into the success of Davis centric Lineups and what that means for the Pelicans The last few weeks unearthed a familiar trend. Lineups with Anthony Davis at center absolutely demolish the opposition. This trend goes years back. First it was Davis and Ryan Anderson as your front court – they blitzed opponents to […]