re: Demps Will Be Back Next Season

The national media drumbeat about AD being wasted in NOLA has already started. Nights like tonight don't help.

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Kevin Pelton ?@kpelton 1 hour ago

Besides Anthony Davis, other 4 players on the court for New Orleans starting 2nd half were originally signed for the minimum as free agents.

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Haralabos Voulgaris @haralabob

Some of the lineup decisions Pels make are so puzzling. Can’t wait till Erman releases the coaches meetings he’s been secretly recording.

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Mike Prada ?@MikePradaSBN 47 minutes ago

If you’re wondering why Anthony Davis can’t touch the ball, notice how two Pelicans were wide open on the weakside and it didn’t matter

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No, it's the fault of the guy he hired after he got a coach fired that he believed was holding back the roster. The same roster that they kept intact for Gentry to unleash. The buck has to stop somewhere.

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Interesting thoughts from 42 on the BSS podcast this week. He's stated for years that he felt Ryno and Tyreke were acquired with the intention of flipping them later for value, so 42 viewed the trade deadline as a big failure on the original, admittedly assumed, goal of acquiring Ryno. Tyreke falls into the same category and unless I'm completely wrong about the market for him, cap space and a 2nd is the best you can get. Another possibly big misread of where the market was going.

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I think that is a re-writing of history given interviews with Demps and Anderson at the time. The consensus with Anderson was he would be our long term 4 as Davis grew into a long term 5 and Evans would be our Manu Ginoboli/James Harden that came off the bench and then finished games with Jrue and Gordon. This is backed up by interviews with Demps, Monty, Anderson and insider media reports local and national.

I do think Demps at a minimum believed that he was acquiring people that the market had undervalued and that in the course of time if they didn't work out he would be able to flip them for equal or greater value. With Anderson I still think he was right. Given what players did move we probably could have gotten a late first and an expiring. Demps seemingly wanted more and teams moved on. So he dug his own grave on that one.

Evans I never liked the acquisition and there is no way we ever were gonna get equal or greater value for him. not when the cost ultimately became 11 million in cap space, Robin Lopez, Greives Vasquez, and ultimately a mid first rounder to replace Lopez.

Yeah the biggest issue was the redundancy that we created by having Holiday, Gordon, and Evans all on fairly large contracts. I think this was the thing that everyone had the most gripe over even back when we acquired Reke and it wound up being a major factor to why we're at the point we're at today.

They've all played together just fine if we go by lineup data.

Pundits blasted the Jrue deal, but largely ignored the Tyrec deal, which was worse. Jrue gave up two marginal assets that may develop. Tyrec gave up 2 competent NBA players on cheap deal, one of which created a massive hole at the 5. All in exchange for unnecessary redundancy.

I do think Demps can be defended some based on Davis's unexpected growth on offense.

No one was seeing him as a 24ppg scorer, even after his excellent rookie year. His jumper had promise, yes. No one really expected his otherworldly touch and ability to finish awkwardly at volume. In that light, getting some more offense made some sense, in theory.

The Tyreke move was all time bad, much worse than the Cavs signing larry Hughes when lebron was young. Not having Lopez resulted in the Asik trade and contract.