Hoops Tonight: NBA Power Rankings: #15 New Orleans Pelicans

Those were a ton of fun all around. It's by far the best sports gambling experience I've come into contact with. If you are new, just download the fandel sports Book app to get started now. Sign up with promo code Jason T so they know I sent you again. Promo code Jason T so they know I sent you twenty one plus in President Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Indiana, Louisiana. Permitted parishes only, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, Virginia or

West Virginia. First online real money wager only, refund issued as non withdrawalable site credit that expires in fourteen days. Restrictions apply see terms at sports Book dot fan duel dot com gambling problem call one eight hundred next step or text next step to five three three four two in Arizona one eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org slash chat in Connecticut one eight hundred gambler or visit FanDuel dot

com slash rg in Colorado, Indiana, New Jersey. In Virginia one eight seven seven seven seven zero stop in Louisiana one eight hundred to seven zero seven one one seven for confidential help in Michigan one eight seven seven eight hope and why or text hope and Why to four six seven three six nine in New York. In tennessee redline dial one eight hundred eight eight nine nine seven eight nine in Tennessee visit www one eight dot one

eight hundred gambler dot net in West Virginia. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by fan Duel here at the volume. Happy Monday, everybody. I hope all of you guys had a great weekend and that your weeks are off to a good start. We are back in the studio. It is not finished yet. I promise we're not going in front of this blank wall all season. I have a bunch of stuff that's gonna be there. It's just

not there yet. But hey, at least it's a lot better than those cabinets that you guys all uh felt like roasting me for last week. So um, bear with me. We're almost completely done. Feels good to have this set up and made some permanent changes, especially off camera, that are gonna make this a lot easier for me this year.

We're continuing with our power rankings today. Now. Our power rankings have been doublings like season previews, so we're doing deep dives into the to the teams, especially into their personnel. Change is in what they like to do on both sides of the floor. Um. Last week we got a little derailed by the Donovan Mitchell trade because number fifteen in my list was Chicago. Obviously they're not fifteen anymore with Cleveland. Call them fifteen, b call them sixteen. I

don't care. We're moving past them and the Pelicans are gonna be taking that fifteen spot. So today number fifteen, the New Orleans Pelicans. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the volumes YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt s you guys, don't miss show announcements. And last but not least, if you miss one of these shows and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish them, remember you can find them

in audio form wherever you get your podcasts. Under Hoops tonight. So to give you guys an idea for those of

you missed it last week. The format we're going with here, we're gonna briefly touch on last year, touch on player personnel changes, deep dive on offense, deep dive on defense, what their best case scenario is, what their worst case scenario is, and who their biggest X factor is, player that has a player concept, coach, whatever thing that has the biggest swing capability and when it comes to the outcome of their season. So, last season was a down

year in terms of health for the Pelicans. That really really hurt them. CJ. McCollums, I and Williamson and Brandon Ingram combined to only play in eighty one games. So as a result, just in general, today we're gonna be spending the vast majority of our attention looking forward rather than looking backwards, just simply because there's just not a lot you can take from a team that's gonna be playing completely different players this season. None of it's going

to translate as smoothly um. But last year, with what they had in terms of availability, they were nineteenth in offense, eighteenth in defense. Obviously bad on both fronts. But at the end of the season, when they started to get healthy, things started to click and there were a lot of things for Pelicans fans to get excited about. They finished

the season nine and six. In their last fifteen games, they won both playing games, and then they took a very good Sons team with Chris Paul playing at the very peak of his ability right before he fell apart. In the second round, they took that Son's team to

six games in really impressive fashion. I thought the revelation of that playoff run, or the end of the season run was Brandon Ingram, who average twenty nine six and six on true shooting in the playing games and then twenty seven six and six on fifty eight percent shooting in the first round. I did a deep dive on brandon Ingram during our player rankings, So if you I'm not gonna over, you know, dive back into those things today.

So if you're looking for brandon Ingram uh analysis and you didn't catch our earlier video, go deeper into our feed player rankings, and that eleven to fifteen video is where we did the deep dive into brandon Ingram. So they didn't do much this offseason, but that's a good thing. That's too uh David Griffin's benefit. Now, I I don't agree with everything that David Griffin has done since he got into that position. You know, him beefing with Lebron

was weird. He's a little bit egotistical, but I do think he knows the basketball. I do think he's a good GM and I think that's evidenced in the way this roster has come together, especially with the types of players that he's found on the wing. I really like Trey Murphy, I really like Herb Jones, and those are guys that he found on the margins. And then you add in um A. Dyson Daniels, their first round draft

pick from this season. Once again, we did a deep dive into Dyson Daniels for our pre draft stuff, so you can find that deeper in our feed. But they're really interesting and really deep. On the wing, Dyson Daniels is kind of like a you know, he's a defensive minded wing that can make plays with the past attacking clothes out, So kind of a similar archetype to Dale and Terry when we were talking about Chicago, except for I think Dyson Daniels has much better physical tools and

particularly is more physically developed. Good that he was with the G League. Um, I think that helped him a lot in that regard, but I think that's gonna make him more NBA ready right now. But outside of that, not a whole lot else. Iron signed his extension, which is good obviously, and then their second round draft pick e J. Ladell ended up tearing his A C L at summer league, so he won't factor into this particular season. But good you your team that's on the right track.

You've got a great core. You didn't screw that up, so that's that's good. In terms of their offseason approach, their depth chart as of right now at the guard position, I see see Jim McCollum, DeVante Graham, Garrett Temple, Kira Lewis, and Jose Alvarado. On the wing, Brandon Ingram I'm calling Zion Williamson a wing. I don't even know what you call him. At this point. We're gonna talk a lot about Zion today. Um, Dyson Daniels, Trey Murphy and Herb Jones.

They're big, Jonas Valanciunas, Larry Nance, Jackson Hayes, and Willie heren On Gomez. That's gonna be really interesting core. Depending on where's Ion fits in their lineup, someone's gonna get screw uh, get squeezed there. I think it might end up being Jackson Hayes. We'll see. All right, let's talk about the offensive end of the floor. We're gonna do a deep dive into what they did last year as well as what I expect them to do this year now that Sion Williamson is back in the picture. So

they were a heavy post up team. There were six in total post ups this year. Big part of that was Jonas Valanciunas. Um, if I ask you, guys who you thought the highest volume post up players in the league were, you'd probably say Nicola Yo Kitchen, Joel embat and you would be right. But guess who's third on that list. It's Jonas Valanciuna as they throw the ball down there to him a lot um. He does okay there,

but he's not. He scores less than one point per possession on post ups, So in general, I'd like to see them do a little bit less of that. This year. They run a lot of off ball actions with CJ. Mccollumin brandon Ingram to get them attacking with an advantage. This is very similar to what I was talking about with the Chicago Bulls was Zach Lavine and Demarda Rosen. I think of it as like an off ball pick

and roll. Essentially, it's the same type of reads, like if you come off the screen and you're open, you shoot it right. But if you don't and the defenders chasing you, you're trying to work curling around the screen to get downhill into the lane to force the defense to rotate, or obviously get all the way to the rim if you can. This turned into a really interesting chess match with Phoenix because New Orleans is not a good pick and roll team, at least they weren't during

this regular season. They were the third worst pick and roll team in the entire NBA on a per possession basis. So essentially, Monty Williams wanted to take New Orleans out of their off ball actions and forced them to run more heliocentric style with c J mcollum and Brandon Ingram attacking with a live dribble out of pick and roll.

So what he did was he straight up top sided on Brandon Ingram and c J McCollums, so he'd have Jay Crowder and Michael Bridges position themselves like backside to half court in the way of Brandon and c J. Where they were trying to come off their screens, kind of like straight up giving a backdoor cut if they wanted to, but just trying to disrupt that initial attack

in their offense. I thought it was a really smart strategy for Monty Williams, and particularly in the early part of that series, you can see that have an effect on New Orleans in their confidence on the offensive end of the floor. They did get off to a slow start,

particularly in Game one. Um The interesting dynamic there though, was even though in the regular season the Pelicans average zero point eight points per pick and roll possession, which again was third worst in the entire league, they bumped that up to one point per possession which is solid

against the Sun's. A huge part of that was Jose Alvartrado played extremely well, DeVante Graham played extremely well coming off the bench, and Cje McCollum is one of the better pick and roll players in the league as well. I don't want to do talk about it too much further again, because like I said, I did a deep dive into this for the player rankings, but brandon Ingram passing out of high pick and roll was amazing to watch.

In this particular playoff run, he already is seeing the floor and passing at a higher level than a lot of his peers at that position around the league. He's huge, so he can see the floor well, He's got these long arms so he can make these like slingshot, like catapult passes across the court to the weak side corner. Just just really high level stuff from him. It was a huge part of why I had him as high

in my player rankings as I did. What was the interesting chess match of that series was Phoenix turning New Orleans into a pick and roll team even though they didn't want to be, and then then succeeding anyway because they had four ball handlers who all did well in pick and roll in that series. Um. CJ McCollum was the eighth best pick and roll player in the league last year to run at least three pick and rolls in the regular season. Obviously, he did well in that

playoff series as well. Didn't shoot the ball as well as he'd like, but he's a guy that's going to generate quality offense there. Um. The interesting thing I wanted to talk a little bit about c J. C J is a really interesting player because he's not a fantastic athlete at the shooting guard position, but he does a really, really good job of protecting the basketball with a live dribble. And this is something that I talked about a lot

with young players. How many times, either as a young player, have you seen this or have you done it yourself where you're dribbling in front of somebody and you try to do a crossover dribble in front of your body and the defender just kind of reaches their hands out and pokes it away from you, and you can't figure out how they sat on it. You can't figure out how they got to it, but they got to it.

Now they're running the other way for a layup. It happens a lot, and with the kids that I coach, I always tell him the same thing, like, when you have distance between you and the defender in front of you, you can do things like crossover dribbles, but specifically when you're like up close and personal with the defensive player who has his hand out and is trying to disrupt your dribble, you need to protect the basketball, and the easiest way to do that is to dribble between your legs.

You have to take long, lunging steps and protect the basketball by dribbling between your legs. C J McColl him the vast majority of his dribble combinations are done between his legs to protect the basketball. The other thing that he does really well is called snaking the pick and roll. Essentially, imagine it like this. If a guard is chasing you over the top of the screen, one of the easiest ways to make it harder for him to actually get over the screen is to make him navigate around the

screen for longer. So if you come around the screen to the right and then you immediately snake back to the left side of the floor, that guard has a harder time navigating it's like him trying to go around around about as you can imagine. Um. C J. McCollums snakes to pick and roll extremely well. He's also great pull up jump shooter. He took eleven pull up jump shots per game in this regular season and made them at a fifty effective field goal percentage that's field goal

percentage waited for three point shots. He also averaged five assists per game. So just having a couple of really high end pick and roll ball handlers in Brandon Ingram and c J. McCollum made that interesting. And then with Jose Alvarado and Davante Graham playing well off the bench, they were able to hang with a really, really good team in Phoenix. Valance Junist was the was the what I thought was the most interesting kind of conundrum that

the Pelicans found themselves in in that Phoenix series. So to give you an idea, in a hundred and seventy five minutes with him on the floor against Phoenix, they were minus fifteen and a hundred and thirty hundred and thirteen minutes with him off, they were plu us six, and specifically on the defensive end of the floor, they were eleven points seven points better with him off the floor, and it's the classic bigs verse perimeter players debate that

I'm always having with you guys on the show. M Valancinis brings a ton of things to the table as a dominant big man. He is an outstanding offensive rebounder in the NBA's pretty solid in the short roll, so when he catches the ball in pick and roll in the middle of the floor, he's good at making reads to his teammates, lob passes to someone cutting back door,

hitting shooters in the corner. He's got like a really kind of jankie looking kind of like push shot or floater in the lane that he makes quite a bit. And then obviously high volume post up guy that succeeds the average zero point nine eight points per possession and post ups. So he does all these things that help you right. Obviously, if he's standing right underneath the basket and somebody tries to score over him, he can bother

them with a length. But because he's a slow footed big, he hurts you in all these other areas of the game. He got absolutely destroyed in pick and roll by the Phoenix Suns. That's a huge part of why their defense

was so bad with him on the floor. He's just too slow to be put in positions as a defender where he either needs to cover ground meaning he's covering a perimeter player in open space, or in pick and roll where he's got to split the difference between multiple players being up on Chris Paul did his way to pull up while also getting back to dissuade the lob with DeAndre, and he's just not really capable of doing

that and extremely high level. So in general, even though he did all these good things, like once again he destroyed Phoenix on the offensive glass, he scored the basketball around the rim, he did a lot of good things, but in the aggregate, when you factored in the things that he was hurting the team in as a defensive player in particular and also was spacing, I didn't think it was actually a good arrangement, and they didn't do well with him on the floor against Phoenix. I think

he's good to have on the roster. He can eat innings in the regular season, but in the playoffs. Moving forward, I'd like to see them favor Larry Nance at that five spot because of what he can do on the perimeter with his scale, he could shoot the ball and attack close outs things like that. And then on defense he's a lot more mobile. You can use him in a drop coverage. He's not gonna be a great drop

coverage big, but he can do that. But in general, he can do the more versatile defensive stuff like switching and pick and roll or guarding in transition when he has to pick up a different man in transition. I just like Larry Ants a little bit better in that spot, and I don't think it was a coincidence that they played better with Larry Ants on the floor in this particular playoffs, uh, playoff run. But when we're projecting forward for this Pelicans team, we have to factor in Zion Williamson.

You know, this is the number one overall draft pick from a few years back, so he's obviously going to be some type of focal point in the offense. And it's a different Everything is different than the last time he played. Not only was c J. McCollum not there, but the team is more serious. This is a Pelicans team that probably is talking about how they have a chance to win the West. Now do I think they

have a chance to win the West? No, we'll get further in to that, but the reality is is this is a team with real ambitions now, and this is a team that has more you know, competent ball handling around him. So it's gonna be a different role than it was last time. Last time he played, he was in a major on ball role. They had him trying to run point guard a lot. He was running a lot of grible handoffs with J. J. Reddick. It was a whole thing, right, It's gonna be a lot different

this time around in this particular system. So I thought the best way to do that, or to try to project that, is to take a look at what Zion's skill set is and how it fits with this particular group. Let's think like coaches for a minute, right, So what is ion specific skill set um for a forward? He handles the ball really well and he can pass the ball really well. So there, that's a good point, a good starting point. As an athlete, he's a mismatch against

basically any type of defender. It kind of reminds me a little bit of Janice in that regard, where it's like he's way too quick for the big players and way too big for the quick players. And that goes for are the big, strong wings like Jayson Tatum, who I think is one of the best perimeter defenders in basketball, or Andrew Wiggins. You know what, those type that archetype of defensive wing is not going to be able to handle the low center of gravity and strength that Zion

Williamson has. That's the type of mismatch problem that he presents to everybody. He is, without a doubt, not even close the best rim finisher in basketball, even better than Janice. Last year or last time you played him and Janice both played sixty one games. Zion lad the entire NBA and restricted area field goal makes with five hundred and forty,

which was a hundred and thirteen more than Janice. To give you some perspective, this year, I was talking about how Zion average excuse me, Janice average like six point seven restricted area makes per game and Lebron was right there because he was averaging six point six in one campaign. Zion average nine restricted area makes per game. This sky is just physically impossible to keep away from the rim.

That's the type of mismatch problem that he is. So we have to think about how he fits alongside these Pelicans lineups. Now, the first problem is is you can't play him at the five. We discovered in that campaign that defensively, he's not capable of doing what a backside rim protector can do or a typical good back line defender can do, right, So they're gonna have to play him alongside some sort of big man. The temptation is going to be to play alongside Jonas Valanciutis a lot.

I expect him to start alongside Jonas Valanciunis, but like we talked about earlier, I'm not a huge fan of that specific fit because of the negatives that come with Jonas. So my hope is that in the long run that they pair him a lot with Larry Nance as that backside defender gives him a ton of athleticism in the front court. That could be really, really interesting. So when we think about what the Pelicans have around Zion this time around, right, we got c Jim McCollum, who's an

outstand n shooter and ball handler. Brandon Ingram is an outstanding ball handler and probably will shoot the ball well from the perimeter this year, or if Jones, who didn't shoot the ball overly well in this last regular season. We'll get to him a little bit more in a minute, but they typically will have some kind of shooting threat in that the ree spot and then somebody as a big let's call it Larry Nance for the sake of

just talking this through in terms of offensive concepts. So from there, I still like the idea of some of the dribble handoff stuff that they were doing with him and J. J. Reddick again, that that doesn't have to be necessarily something that's looking for Zion. You could use him pretty similar to the way that the Nuggets used Nickel Yokich, and they use his threat to get openings

for his guards. If you could imagine Zion Williamson initiating actions for Brandon Ingram and C. J. McCollum coming off of their you know, curls, there's wide curls, but with a dribble handoff was Zion Williamson, that could add a whole other dynamic to how difficult that is to defend and really open things up for them on the offense of endo the floor. So I still like dribble handoff stuff.

I really like the idea of him as a short roller with Brandon Ingram and c Jim mccollumn against short roll is when you don't roll hard to the rim, but you'd rather kind of soft roll to the middle of the floor. You catch a pocket pass there and you either continue to go to the rim, or you make reads to your teammates, or you can shoot floaters or quick little pull up jump shots and things like that. The other thing I'm really excited for is the spaced ISOs.

This is a team that should, in theory, especially with specific lineups, especially with Larry Nance on the floor, have outstanding spacing, and Zion is just gonna catch really favorable matchups every single game, spacing the floor for him and allowing him to rip through to his left and go

to the rim. That's the way that I see him being used, not as point Zion like they did the last time he played, but a little bit of on ball stuff as a dribble handoff guy, and then a whole lot of stuff as a screener and what he could do to open things up for himself as a screener, and then of course attacking matchups with spaced out ISOs zooming out a couple before we moved to the d defensive end of the floor. I wanted to touch on just a couple of their role players, not all of them,

just the ones that I find particularly interesting today. Um, I really like Herb Jones obviously is an outstanding defensive player. We're gonna get more to Herb Jones on the defensive end of the floor in a minute, but right now, they the Pelicans need him to take a little bit of a leap offensively. He did shoot against Phoenix, but it was really low volume. He's in general, is a

really low volume shooter and shoots about thirty three. Obviously, he's young right now, his release is too slow, so he's too hesitant when he gets some shot like he just he doesn't have a quick enough trigger to make teams pay for guarding for not guarding him. And he's not consistent enough as a shooter to make teams pay for not guarding him. So that's the thing they're gonna have to figure out. Jose Alvarado is excellent pushing the pace for them. You can feel that energy change every

time he checks into the game. He just likes to get going on a full run. Do again. The advantage of attacking that way is it keeps a defense from getting set and leads to more helter skelter stuff. A lot of times you can catch favorable matchups that way. Because transition defense it's usually dictates that you grab the person nearest to you. It's an easy way to get favorable matchups. He's also really solid and pick and roll, and he had a really good pick and roll playoff

series against the Phoenix Phoenix Suns. I really like Trey Murphy. He kind of fell out of the rotation against Phoenix, probably because Monti Williams doesn't trust him enough on the defensive end of the floor. But he does have the physical tools to be a good defensive player, so I'm hoping that he gets a bigger role this season. The reason why I like him is he's a gunner. He averaged about eight three point attempts per thirty six minutes

this year. Um, he's everything that Herb Jones is not as a spot up guy, hunts three point shots, has a quick release you know, isn't bothered by mild contests, offers real floor spacing. You can even push that shot out to almost like feet comfortably. I really really like what he could potentially be for them as a three and D guy. There's some potentially exciting stuff there too.

You can start to imagine line ups with Brandon Ingram, Herb Jones, and Trey Murphy all on the floor together, and the type of length and versatility they could have on the defensive end of the floor if he takes a leap defensively. Jackson Hayes is the interesting one. He's an outstanding athlete. He's a little bit out of control when you watch him play, a little bit of a bull of a China bull in the China Shop. But I think his rotation spot is going to be the

one that ends up getting squeezed with Zion returning. So let's move to the defensive end of the floor. So they were a bad defensive team last year. They ranked eighteenth, but health was a big factor in that. Uh. They did have some interesting line up data though, that I think projects for what they could have in some specific scenarios on the defensive end of the floor. Their scheme is pretty consistent with what you see around the rest

of the league. They run drop coverages with Jonas Valanciunas, chase shooters over the top of screens and try to funnel things to Jonas in the paint. They do uhum, a little bit of dropping with Nance as well, but he's a little bit more switchable. And then typically one through four they switched just about everything that they can, which is to David Griffin's credit, they gave he came up with a roster with the right type of personnel to be able to do that type of switching. They

were pretty damn good at defending the paint. They were pretty damn good in transition, and they were pretty damn good securing defensive rebounds. Those three areas in particular all point towards Willie Green, especially when you factor in that Jonas Valanciunas is not exactly the best rim protector in the NBA and that they don't necessarily have the best defensive personnel. It means they have a great help scheme that clogs the paint and makes it so that as

a team they defend the painted area. Obviously, transition defense is big on attention to detail too. That's sprinting back and communicating and getting matched up and then defensive rebounding, boxing out on every possession and having guys crash from the perimeter. That's all coaching. That's all attention to detail. And you know that there's a lot of attention in this particular team devoted towards the players for good reason, right Like Brandon Ingram is a great player, ce Jim

mcollums a great players. Ian Williamson or Jones has been the revelation this year, right, But Willie Green deserves a ton of credit for what he's done with this group and and the way that he's got them bought in and playing hard every single night, and the defensive identity that he's built with this group. He deserves a lot of credit for that. They do air on the side of leaving shooters to help in the paint, though, and

that was the weakness in their defense. They did allow the sixth most made threes and the fifth highest percentage in terms of their opponents three point percentage. R Jones was the biggest bright spot on the defensive end of the floor last year. His role grew as the season progressed. By the end of the season, he was a huge minute guy for them. He's a super disruptive perimeter defender, kind of Kauai esque in the ability that it has that the natural knack he has to take the basketball

away from ball handlers, particularly with a live dribble. He had a hundred and thirty steels last year, which was third in the entire NBA, which is insane for a young defensive wing like that. Um In terms of technique, I think it's really fascinating because you know, a lot of young players reach in on defense. That's to be expected. It's it's just kind of a bad basketball habit that

a lot of young players have. And when I say reaching in, I mean lunging out of position, Like they will lunge forward to get the basketball and reach and in the process throw their entire body out of balance. And so, yeah, you might get the basketball every once in a while, you might force a turnover and you might be running the other way. But the rest of the time, if it's a competent ball handler you're guarding, they're just gonna go right around you because now your

body's out of position. And what what Herb Jones does so well, and it kind of reminds me of Kauai is he can be disruptive with his hands without getting his body out of whack. So he's not lunging, he's just putting his hands in places where the ball usually is while staying square with you and sliding with you. Obviously, it helps to have obscenely long arms to do that, but that in terms of technique is the way that herb Jones can be disruptive without giving ground as a

defensive player. When brandon Ingram and herb Jones shared the floor together last year, they had a hundred and six point eight defensive rating, which is excellent for perspective. Boston led the league last year as a team with the one oh six point two. Now, when you start messing with line up data and that gets a little tricky,

but that's just one qualifier. Just brandon Ingram and herb Jones together, they defended pretty damn well, and that's something that you can take as a huge positive looking forward. Brandon Ingram in general is gonna be the main kind of like fulcrum for their defensive potential next year because he has shown a tendency throughout his career too given to have given take in terms of his effort on

that side of the floor. Obviously, his defensive potential is insanely high with his physical tools, but he can just be lazy sometimes when when he was in with the Lakers in Los Angeles, he defended extremely well, and then he went to New Orleans and took a bigger offensive role and kind of let go of the rope there. Had a pretty bad defensive season for the most part last year, but then was really good towards the end

of the year, particularly in that playoff run. So that potential verse reality thing with Brandon Ingram, whether or not it's the good defensive version of Brandon Ingram or the lazy one, that's gonna be a huge indicator for them this season. Jose Alvarado is a really interesting defensive player too, not just everyone will focus on the famous videos of him sneaking up from behind and taking the ball away, but he's just downright disruptive even in the half court

as well. He's he kind of reminds me of Patrick Beverley with his knack for freelancing, like randomly double teaming or randomly sneaking from one side of the floor to the other. The there there's just it's hard to explain. There's there's just like an instinct to it, like a a seeing things before they happen type of of of basketball i Q thing that some defensive players have, and Jose Alvarado has that, and he's just got a knack for blowing up plays by freelancing. Some players freelance and

it destroys everything for your defense. Russell Westbrook, for instance, will freelance and almost always get burned. There are guys out there like Jos Alvarado, like Patrick Beverley, you can do a little bit more of that freelancing without getting in as much trouble for it. It's a timing thing, it's an instinct thing. I don't really have a better

way of describing it. But when Jose Alvarado, Brandon Ingram and Herb Jones were on the floor together or last year, they had a defensive rating of eighty five point seven. Now is in a pretty small sample size, only forty six minutes, But that's an interesting trio that I wouldn't mind seeing a little bit more this year. The key to them on the defensive end is gonna be hiding Zion. Zanion is a bad defensive player right now, and just about every facet of the game, he's got bad instincts.

His decision making in terms of when to help versus when to stay with his man is poor he gets up out of his stance when he's off ball. You'll see this in the film. Instead of sitting in his defensive stance, will kind of stand upright, which just makes you take that extra second to squat down into your stance before you close out or before you go help. And as a result, that split second can cost you as a help defender. So those are just little discipline

things he's gonna have to get better. As a result, they're going to have to pair him with a solid back line defender, like we talked about on the offensive end of the floor, so he's gonna have to be alongside Larry and answer Jonas valancun Is just to be even beyond the floor. I kind of prefer using him as like a wing defender in the sense that you kind of target him in in in a role where it's a little bit easier for him to make decisions.

Like if he's in a primary back line role, he's gonna have to make so many help and recover decisions over the course of the game that it's gonna hurt your defense. But if he's in more of a backside help role where he's rotating as opposed to meeting people at the rim all game long. I think I'll have a little bit more success. Obviously in the long run, you'd like to see him be some version of Draymond, but there's just so far for him to go to ever get to that level that I don't think it's

safe to count on it at that point. My favorite line up with this group right now and C Jim McCollum, IRV Jones, brandon Ingram, Larry Nansen, Zion. I think that gives you the flexibility to switch everything if you wanted to defensively, and then on the offensive end of the floor, you've got four guys that can knock down shots to put around Zion. You can use Zion as your primary screen and roll threat or as an isolation threat. That's

the lineup that I like the most. Um either way, regardless of everything that we said, their defensive ceiling is somewhat limited because of the fact that you have to play C. J. McCollum and you have to play Zion Williamson because they're two of your three best players right So because of that, naturally you're weak defensively at two spots on the perimeter and then their two back line defenders, and Jonas Valanciunas and Larry Nancer their screen and role defenders.

They're both okay, neither of them are great defensively in that role. So when you've got a weak defensive front line and then you've got two weak links that need to play consistent minutes at the other four positions, there's just no universe where they're ever gonna be an elite defensive team. Like a defensive team that can lock in and get lots of stops in a row. That's just not going to be the thing that they're capable of.

That puts a hard ceiling on them on that side of the floor, which inherently puts a hard ceiling on them in terms of their overall aspirations for this season. All right, let's take a look at the best case scenario for this Pelicans team. So obviously, the best case scenario is brandon Ing German Zion both take leaps as defensive players. Right, brandon Ingram gets to what he's capable of being, which is an all defense level wing, and

z And Williamson just becomes a passable defensive player. Ce J McCollum kind of is what he is but maybe you can get him to buy in and commit on that end of the floor. Um herb Jones becomes a better shooter, thus being a more of a perimeter threat on the offensive end of the floor to make his value greater with what he does on the defensive end of the floor, he also needs to get a little

bit better attacking closeouts. Hopefully the Zion fit on the offensive end of the floor is natural and seamless, especially with what they need as a screener and without what he could do with dribble handoff actions as the trigger man and what he can do attacking matchups, which can which can change things in a playoff series. If they play a lot less Jonas Valentiunas, play with more pace, play with more Larry Nance, a little bit more five out, a little bit more up and down the floor to

play into your athleticism more. I think if all of those things come together, this is a team that could have a top five offense and a top fifteen defense. Obviously, like we talked about, their defensive ceiling is limited by playing so much Zion and c J and with what they have in terms of back line defenders. So with you with a top five offense and a top five

defense or top fifteen defense. What are we getting. I think you could have a top four seed in the West, you could finish three or four there, and then you have a puncher's chance to make the conference finals. But do I don't think it's reasonable to believe that if Golden State was healthy, or if the Clippers were healthy, that they would have any chance to win those series. Is because both of those teams are every bit as good as what they can do on offense and significantly

better on the defensive end of the floor. Obviously, with someone like Zion as a as a matchup problem, anything can happen. But I think this is a team that has a hard ceiling of the conference finals because of what they're limited by on the defensive end of the floor. Obviously, they're worst case scenario is injuries crop up again. Brandon Ingram C J. McCollum and Zion of all issues with injuries in the past, that lack of a defensive ceiling could end up biting them earlier than later. Um the

fit with Zion could end up being clunky. Obviously I don't think it will be, but that's a possibility if it ends up struggling of Zion struggles in that role, or if he wants to be on ball more, then in that case, it ends up being something that's more like a playing team, something more like what happened last year, a team that's frisky, a team that you know could take a game or two off of a one seed or two seed, but not a team that has a

real threat. That's what I view is the worst case scenario. And then most importantly, if Zion gets hurt again, then you've got to start having serious conversations about whether or not that draft pick has pained out the way that they hope, and whether or not it might be worthwhile to move off of him. So his health is another thing that I would look at in terms of the um what the worst case scenario would be. All Right, last, but not least, who's the biggest X factor on this team.

I think it's Brandon Ingram. You know, in my player rankings, I put him as the twelfth best player in the world. Now that was probably a little high, and I was definitely I was definitely judging him based on what I think he can be a little bit more than what he has been based on what happened in that playoff series against Phoenix. We talked about that already in our mail bag. I'm not going to get any further into it, but there was there's a case that Brandon Ingram is

not even a top twenty five player. I'm sure there were some of you who are listening that thought that someone the likes of Rudy Gobert is better, or someone the likes of, you know, Trey Young is better, or someone along those lines. Right, But let's just look at that as a spectrum. This season, one of two things

is gonna happen. Brandon Ingram is going to continue to flash the playmaking that he showed in that playoff series, continue to flash the high volume efficient scoring, like I think the only average like twenty three points a game in the regular season that went up to twenty nine in the playing in twenty seven in the playoffs. What are we gonna get from Brandon Ingram this year? Are we gonna get the twenty seven point per game efficient

playmaking forward that's an all defense level wing. Or are we gonna get the twenty three point per game, nagging, injury, non focused defensive player that we got for large chunks of last season, right, and that swing factor is going to be the biggest difference between this whether or not this is a Pelicans team that can make a run to the conference semis or conference finals and a team that get remains stuck in the playing game. Brandon Ingram is the X factor of this team. He does struggle

to stay on the court with injuries. He is inconsistent with his buy in on the defensive end of the floor. He does have long stretches where scoring isn't as efficient or as high volume as it can be, as we saw in that playoff series. So that that is going to be the guy to watch this season as a Pelicans fan. If you see him going on an all NBA type of campaign, that's a great sign for where this franchise is setting forward, and it's a great sign for what they're capable of if they end up in

a playoff series against a good team. All right, guys, that is all I have for today. We will be right back with number fourteen tomorrow. As always, I appreciate your guys a support and I'll see you then. And the volume