Demps - Asking AD to Move Mountains

quote:

---

Seventy percent of lottery winners go bankrupt within a few years, a precariously similar reality facing the New Orleans Pelicans, who currently have just one player on their roster they drafted. Dell Demps bet his GM job and the early career of Anthony Davis on ball dominant guards in Holiday, Eric Gordon, Tyreke Evans and Rivers, along with traditional lumbering centers just as the NBA was moving toward ball movement, spacing and shooting. The Draymond Greens and Jae Crowders and Avery Bradleys the Pelicans need who can shoot three-pointers and defend multiple positions at a high level are far more difficult to acquire than the Gordons and Evans that look like they're capable of carrying a team's offense if the NBA was still playing as they were 15 years ago.

---

quote:

---

Outside of the trade for Asik and subsequent contract, none of the moves are awful on their own but the lack of any complementary foundational pieces alongside Davis makes the project steeped with issues and those moves look terrible in the aggregate. The Holiday trade could have conceivably become a slightly lesser version of the James Harden trade if not for the injuries as they were getting a 23-year-old two-way guard coming off an All-Star appearance. The Pelicans have correctly identified Holiday as the player still capable of being an adequate secondary piece around Davis and considered him untouchable leading to the deadline.

---

quote:

---

The back of the Pelicans’ roster is even filled with veterans who won’t be in the league much longer instead of developmental players. Kendrick Perkins, Toney Douglas, Alonzo Gee, Luke Babbitt and Norris Cole are all likely on their final NBA stops. The signing of Bryce Dejean-Jones was at least a move in the developmental direction...

---

quote:

---

There’s a lot of formulas of how to build around Davis that require minimal strategic genius and the consolation of going through this now before Davis’ extension even begins is there’s time to withstand the bankruptcy and figure out how to fix it.

---