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I've been thinking about the Pelicans a lot over the past couple days and wanted to put this out there for some thoughts.

Let's think about two hypothetical deals.

1) If the Pelicans offered Anthony Davis to the Celtics, how much could they get?
2a) If the Pelicans offered DeMarcus Cousins to the league, how much could they get? 2b) There were previous grumblings about a Cousins/Beal swap when Cousins was still in Sacramento. Do you think anything like that is still possible?

Re-signing Jrue is going to essentially cap out the Pelicans. There are scenarios in my mind where the two above trades happen and the Pelicans come out the other side with a better team now AND moving forward. I might be crazy, but I'm curious where everyone else stands.

I assume if Pelicans offered Davis that the fan base would go bezerk.

Cousins, they probably want til Feb. '18 before getting serious about what to do.

They probably just bring everyone back, nothing major. On paper, the pairing of Cousins and Davis seemed to be good after the trade. Most projection systems had the Pelicans projected to play like a 50 win team after the trade. They didn't, but with a full training camp, maybe it works better. I think they give it at least a half-season shot next year. I'd wager they have decent projections for next year, maybe even back end of the playoffs. A main 3 of Holiday, Cousins and Davis SHOULD be pretty good. That's the basis of a playoff team already.

JoshEngleman wrote:I've been thinking about the Pelicans a lot over the past couple days and wanted to put this out there for some thoughts.

Let's think about two hypothetical deals.

1) If the Pelicans offered Anthony Davis to the Celtics, how much could they get?
2a) If the Pelicans offered DeMarcus Cousins to the league, how much could they get? 2b) There were previous grumblings about a Cousins/Beal swap when Cousins was still in Sacramento. Do you think anything like that is still possible?

Re-signing Jrue is going to essentially cap out the Pelicans. There are scenarios in my mind where the two above trades happen and the Pelicans come out the other side with a better team now AND moving forward. I might be crazy, but I'm curious where everyone else stands.

I wouldn't trade Davis for anything. He & Giannis are the best bets to be the few years down the line superstar who could lead a team past the Warriors (w/ an aged LeBron less of a finals given), if the roster cards fall right.

But, based on your question - I think the Pelicans would get everything they asked from the Celtics if they traded AD.

Cousins, I suspect, is probably worth more than what he'd ever bring in trade. Not sure what to think on his scenario.

8th seed seems feasible. Lots of competition but not that good.

This team isn't good. What am I missing here? I'm short ~4700 minutes. Where do they go? It's too bad they can't sign KCP, as he could slot in perfectly with this team.

What are the three stacked win totals? The first one, then rep, then avg. It is not obvious.


Pelicans should probably trool / pound looksees at training camp, nonguaranteed 1 yr deals, 10 days. True free fight for minutes after the first few guys. Be ready to yank the Coach Gentry if he gets stuck in rut with meh or worse performance. It is very unlikely he is going to turn the corner.

Crow wrote:What are the three stacked win totals? The first one, then rep, then avg. It is not obvious.


Pelicans should probably trool / pound looksees at training camp, nonguaranteed 1 yr deals, 10 days. True free fight for minutes after the first few guys. Be ready to yank the Coach Gentry if he gets stuck in rut with meh or worse performance. It is very unlikely he is going to turn the corner.

The first is simply the raw total wins from everything above. The "Rep" number is the total wins if they filled their remaining minutes with replacement level players. The "Avg" number is the total wins if they filled their remaining minutes with average players.

oh, ok. Thanks for the reply. So I'll use the middle REP total and basically ignore the other 2.

Crow wrote:oh, ok. Thanks for the reply. So I'll use the middle REP total and basically ignore the other 2.

Yeah, that's the safest bet. Most teams aren't getting such a huge gap on my first pass, but the Pels are just so poorly constructed I couldn't figure it out. I'm going to dig into some Pelicans blogs/reddit for some insight in the next day or two.

My model is a little higher on them (just using your minutes to make comparison easier), but from my look at it they project to have next to no offense outside of Davis, Cousins, Jrue, and Crawford. They NEED someone else who can score.

I have them at 41 wins using the same minute projections. So we're all in the same ballpark.

Depending on how they fill the ~4700 minutes I'm missing, they'll likely settle around 40.

What about Dante Cunningham? Not that he's a super difference maker or anything, but most metrics had him as a quality rotation player in 25 minutes per game last year. Now he's an unrestricted free agent, and I haven't heard a peep about him, like he's fallen off the face of the earth.

Nathan wrote:What about Dante Cunningham? Not that he's a super difference maker or anything, but most metrics had him as a quality rotation player in 25 minutes per game last year. Now he's an unrestricted free agent, and I haven't heard a peep about him, like he's fallen off the face of the earth.

For me, he would be worth 1.6 wins over 1000 minutes, so he's functional, but not really moving the needle. They have his Bird rights, so I'd expect they bring him back.