For the New Orleans Pelicans, even Anthony Davis isn’t enough to compensate for the numerous injuries that they’ve been dealt this season
A few weeks ago, the New Orleans Pelicans and the Anthony Davis bandwagon was full. They were the darlings of the Western Conference and Davis was many people’s favorite to win the NBA MVP award.
Fast forward to today and five straight losses to open the regular season (to the Warriors 2x, Blazers, Magic and Hawks), we’re realizing that perhaps even the great Anthony Davis isn’t enough to get the Pelicans through a rough stretch without a few of their key players, who are recovering/limited from injury.
But this shouldn’t come as a surprise. And we probably should’ve foreseen a slow start to the season instead of getting drunk off the potential of Anthony Davis.
According to ESPN’s Kevin Pelton, 71.5 percent of Anthony Davis’ baskets in 2014-15 came assisted. Compared to other top stars in the league, that aren’t strictly jump shooters or conventional big men, that is extremely high.
In comparison, only 49.3 percent of LaMarcus Aldridge‘s shots in 14-15 were assisted. While those numbers aren’t a knock on Davis, it just proves that a slow start from the team was expected. His game was going to be different especially with the team’s two top assist leaders from 14-15 sidelined to injury or limited. Jrue Holiday hasn’t played more than 27 minutes in any game this season and Tyreke Evans is expected to miss another few weeks.
For an All-NBA player, Anthony Davis is unusually dependent on assists from teammates: https://t.co/UbiKNae4KQ (In) pic.twitter.com/f3fn8G7gem
— Kevin Pelton (@kpelton) November 5, 2015
With Evans out and Holiday limited to under 30 minutes a night, it seems, Davis was going to have to take a bigger part of this team’s offense. Although, that’s a fine line to straddle. Especially for a player that has never experienced that in his short career.
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Perhaps the most intriguing aspect is that Davis isn’t even averaging more shot attempts per game five games into the season. He’s right around 18 shots per game, but is shooting only 44 percent from the field. He shot 54 percent last season on the same amount of attempts.
Is it forcing shots he wouldn’t usually take? Is the loss of Evans hampering Davis’ shot selection, not getting the ball in his sweet spots? It’s probably a little of both.
Question is, will the New Orleans Pelicans stay afloat until reinforcements return? So far, no.
Davis hasn’t been enough. And that’s not a bad thing. It’s simply the truth. No one player ever is except for LeBron James, who has an exceptional trait of making all his players better. Davis, for better or worse, simply isn’t there yet.
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With a bit of a soft spot on the schedule, with back-to-back games against the Dallas Mavericks on the dock, the New Orleans Pelicans will have a chance get back on track. But Anthony Davis is going to need help, and that may even be too much to ask from the injury-riddled Pelicans.
Unfortunately, if he doesn’t get that help, the downward start to the season is going to continue for New Orleans. And considering their circumstances, that’s OK.