The New Orleans Pelicans, name change aside, are going to be a much different team than anyone remembers from last year.
General Manager Dell Demps is certainly trying to do something to make the Pelicans better.
Gone are the days of Greivis Vasquez and Robin Lopez, replaced by the combination of Jrue Holiday, Tyreke Evans and Jeff Withey.
And those three players represent a massive upgrade to the Pelicans roster.
I understand Lopez and Vasquez were the Pelicans’ best players last year, but playing on an overall bad team had overvalued both players.
The Pelicans weren’t winning a championship with those players in the starting lineup.
Vasquez was one of the slowest point guards in the league and ultimately wouldn’t have taken this team very far.
He only assisted on 19.1 percent of shots at the rim — the fourth lowest in the league for point guards who received 30 or more minutes per game. His crazy assist total from last year was aided by the fact that he almost always was running a terrible offense, not that he was getting guys a bunch of high-quality shots at the rim.
Vasquez was also a below-average defender for his position, especially against quicker guards. While defensive statistics in the NBA haven’t advanced to the point to allow for in-depth statistical analysis, Vasquez only averaged 1.18 defensive plays per game last year, also fourth worst in the league in the same category.
Lopez is an average center on a great contract, but his departure brings in former Kansas center Withey, who will fill at least some of the rebounding and defensive hole left by Lopez.
Evans and Holiday make up for the loss of those two players by themselves.
Holiday is a big, young point guard who played well on a terrible 76ers team last year. He is right around a 38 percent 3-point shooter — about league average — and should operate well in the pick and roll with Anthony Davis and Ryan Anderson.
Holiday’s numbers per 40 minutes last season show 19 points, nine assists and five rebounds a game — something not a lot of guys in the league can do.
Evans played on an even worse team than Holiday last year with the Sacremento Kings and will mostly play off the ball for the Pelicans.
He’s a former lottery pick who is still young at 23 years old, and now that he’s out of the hell-hole which is the Kings’ franchise, he could see his development get back on track.
The Pelicans probably overpaid Evans, but no one is coming to New Orleans unless they’re overpaid by a little — especially with the franchise’s recent struggles and the low attendance numbers in a small market.
But as a secondary ball handler and shot creator, Evans fits very nicely in this offense. He’ll have to improve his jump shot, but he gets to and finishes around the rim at near-elite levels. Evans made 63 percent of his shots at the rim last season and took six shots a game in the paint — good for second in the league at either the point guard or the shooting guard position. Even when grouped with small forwards, Evans gets to the rim at a top-five rate.
By calculating Evans’ and Holiday’s win scores, the players will add six wins alone if they play up to their standards from last year.
Withey has work to do at the center position, but he was graded out as the best shot blocker in the draft according to ESPN’s Kevin Pelton and should work well as a back-up big at the NBA level.
But the biggest reason I like these moves is because it shows Tom Benson means business. In his first year of owning the team, Benson has rebranded the organization (terrible name aside, it was a good move) and completely changed the player personnel to put the team in a position to compete.
Benson has put his money where his mouth is, and fans should at least be excited about that.
Trey Labat is a 20-year-old history senior from Mandeville.