New Orleans Pelicans: Is It Time To Blow It Up And Start Over?
With the inability to shake the injury bug, it may be time for the New Orleans Pelicans to tear down and rebuild around Anthony Davis
The New Orleans Pelicans, when healthy, have one of the best young cores in the NBA. With Ryan Anderson (27), Anthony Davis (22), Tyreke Evans (26), Eric Gordon (26) and Jrue Holiday (25), the Pelicans had the potential of competing in a very top heavy Western Conference in a couple of years.
Those five players, specifically the latter four, were supposed to mature together – both on and off the basketball court – in order to one day create one of the most menacing foursomes in all the NBA.
For the time being, two years into that plan, the Pelicans have failed to find their collective footing.
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Sure, Anthony Davis has developed as originally thought, perhaps at an even faster pace – and he’s arguably the second or third best player in the world. Evans, Gordon and Holiday, however, have failed on their part.
Collectively, those three players have missed a combined 142 regular season games (Holiday – 90, Evans – 13, Gordon – 39) during the last two seasons. That number is expected to grow right off the bat this season as the Pelicans are set to begin the regular season without Evans, who will miss at least the first two weeks of the season due to arthroscopic knee surgery.
And while most Pelicans season preview pieces are centered around Davis’ greatness and new coach Alvin Gentry, we all know what this season is really going to be about in New Orleans: health.
However, at what point does that begin to fall on deaf ears?
At what point should the New Orleans Pelicans front office decide that enough is enough?
At what point should they simply move on, and try to build a championship team around Davis in a different way?
Now.
While both Evans and Holiday have two years remaining on their contracts, Gordon is entering the final year of his deal. If the New Orleans Pelicans want to be honest with themselves, they’ll admit mistake and begin to make their transition this year, instead of waiting two more seasons.
The Pelicans could probably trade Gordon, and Evans. Holiday might be the tougher see, but it could happen I suppose.
After all, how good can this core really be in the current Western Conference? Could they win a playoff series? Unless they finish as one of the top four seeds in the conference, that’s highly doubtful. I’m not even sure if this team is good enough to conquer that feat even at 100 percent healthy.
Nevertheless we wait. As does Anthony Davis. For one of two things.
Either the New Orleans Pelicans get healthy this season and their front office patience begins to pay off by exceeding expectations, OR they finally realize that this team simply is never going to be healthy and begin to make the necessary steps to putting together a new core around Davis.
Then again, there’s always a third option. They do nothing, fight the injury bug all year again and hope that Anthony Davis can almost single-handily lead them to the playoffs again.
The New Orleans Pelicans can no longer ignore the fact that the team needs work. It’s time they begin doing what’s right for Davis.