Spent a few hours the last two nights gathering data from each team at 82games.com to help everyone see a clearer picture of how our team is shaping up.
I took every player from each team that logged more than 18% of his teams total minutes and sorted them out in the position they played the most minutes at. I then ranked them by Offensive Production and Defensive Production.

Offensive Production is a measurement 82games uses which is essentially a players Offensive PER Rating per 48 minutes.

Defensive Production is the same measurement of the production the player is guarding per 48 minutes. It really helps show you what a player is really doing defensively.

This is the vast difference in our core seven that we have right now.

ORIGINAL POST I MADE WEDNESDAY EVENING
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Had some free time tonight so I figured I would crunch some Efficiency numbers with our new projected lineup.

DISCLAIMER: I know PER has many flaws and it is not a end all be all statistic, but at this point it is the most consistent single stat in measuring a players value. IMO. This Rating system is far from perfect, it just helps to get a clear picture of where each teams roster stands from a PER standpoint.

I took the top eight minutes guys from each team in the Western Conference last season and weighted each players PER based on what percentage of total minutes he played.
Here were the results of the most efficient teams in the Conference last year according to my weighted PER rating.

EDIT: This is Last Years Ratings, the team was still the Hornets last season!

1 Thunder 183.9
2 Clippers 179.3
3 Spurs 176.9
4 Nuggets 169.0
5 Lakers 165.5
6 Rockets 162.4
7 Hornets 160.7
8 Mavericks 160.0
9 Jazz 159.1
10 Trailblazers 159.1
11 Grizzlies 156.8
12 Kings 155.6
13 Warriors 154.7
14 Timberwolves 149.5
15 Suns 143.9

Obviously there are a few outliers in the results as the Hornets finished 14th but were ranked 7th in the ratings. The Grizzlies and Warriors were both ranked a lot lower than their actual final spot in the standings.

Regardless I did this research simply to try and grasp an idea of how much more productive the Pelicans roster can be than last years team.

A roster consisting of Holiday, Gordon, Evans, Anderson, Davis, Aminu, Vasquez, and Lopez shoots the Pelicans up to a 173.8 Rating, which would have been fourth best in the Western Conference last season.

The addition of Tyreke would most likely result in the loss of Lopez and Vasquez. So a more realistic roster of Holiday, Gordon, Evans, Anderson, Davis, Aminu, Mason, J.Smith results in a 167.2 Rating, which would put us as the fifth highest last season.

If we end up with this roster I think we have a great shot at making the Playoffs again next season.

ADDED TO OP:
Out of the 281 NBA Players that logged 900+ minutes last season, here are were each ranked according to PER.

14 Anthony Davis PF 19 NOH 21.7
42 Robin Lopez C 24 NOH 18.9
51 Ryan Anderson PF 24 NOH 18.1
53 Tyreke Evans SG 23 SAC 18.1
84 Jrue Holiday PG 22 PHI 16.7
95 Greivis Vasquez PG 26 NOH 16.3
120 Eric Gordon SG 24 NOH 15.4
143 Brian Roberts PG 27 NOH 14.6
163 Al-Farouq Aminu SF 22 NOH 13.7
261 Roger Mason SG 32 NOH 10
281 Austin Rivers SG 20 NOH 5.9

Also ADDED:
Using 82Games.com Simple Rating system, which accounts for players production minus opponents production, along with +/-.

Out of 170 Players who played in atleast 50% of their teams minutes.

Rk Team Player Rating
61 NOH Davis 2.7
65 SAC Evans 2.5
*69 NOH Gordon 2.2
72 NOH Lopez 2.1
73 PHI Holiday 2
89 NOH Aminu 1.4
95 NOH Anderson 0.9
122 NOH Vasquez -0.3

* Gordon only played in 32% of the teams minutes last season, this is where he would have ranked had he maintained his production numbers.

This post was edited on 7/6/13 at 12:04 pm