A lot of Pelicans talk on Bill Simmons pod

I mean what else is there to talk about lol. Lack spacing, defense is atrocious, our picks from the trades are sort of worthless, and zion is still heavy. Talks a little about how BI and Zion fit long term

7. Uh oh, Zion is diversifying

When I asked Brandon Ingram earlier this season whether we might see him screen for Williamson, he shook his head and flashed a knowing grin. They were practicing it, and Ingram had seen how effective it could be -- Williamson as switch-proof mega-ball-handler, trampling panicked defenders.

Over the season's first month, New Orleans set only two ball screens per 100 possessions for Williamson, according to Second Spectrum. That number has quadrupled over the Pelicans' past eight games, and the adjustment has unlocked Williamson's playmaking; he's slinging five assists per game in that span, double his career average.

The obvious counter is to duck screens and dare Williamson to hoist. Easier said than done. Big men are less accustomed to guarding ball handlers on the pick-and-roll. Williamson can outrace defenders around the pick; provide him a runway, and you're toast.

Stan Van Gundy is mixing up who screens for Williamson, and where, and what that person does after setting the pick.

Eric Bledsoe -- shooting an unsustainable 40% from deep -- ditches that screen before setting it. That sews confusion for Bledsoe's defender -- Devonte' Graham. Should he wall off Williamson's drive -- and risk leaving Bledsoe open? Should he abandon Williamson to patrol Bledsoe? Switching risks immense bodily harm.

JJ Redick is a natural screener for Williamson; defenders are paranoid about leaving Redick -- limiting how much they can help on Williamson's drives:


The Pacers switch, but that gifts Williamson a mismatch. Help swarms, Redick feasts.

Williamson's promise as a playmaker was that he could distribute out of any scenario: from the post; on isolations up top in the mold of Giannis Antetokounmpo; rampaging in transition; and via either half of the pick-and-roll. That version of Williamson reorders New Orleans' pecking order so no one else is overtaxed. Lonzo Ball becomes a pure spot-up ball mover; he's up to 37% from deep.

It's not a coincidence New Orleans went on a season-saving win streak as Williamson engaged playmaking destructo mode.

Note: I don’t pay for ESPN+, Verizon offers it free to customers along with Disney+ and Hulu.

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Thanks for telling us what he talked about.

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Rob Mahoney provided pretty good analysis. All the stuff we knew already: Defensive is terrible. BI and Zion have been good offensively. While Lonzo and Bledsoe are having good 3pt shooting seasons statistically, teams are still packing the paint and letting them shoot wide open jumpers.


Simmons analysis was all over the place and you can tell he is a national guy that obviously only catches the Pels every once in awhile, so his takes kind of sucked. At least he didn't go on his usual rant about how the Pelicans should move to Seattle.

Yeah I listened to it and came away with the impression that Bill watched the Bulls game and decided to talk Pelicans after not watching them all season. He basically said we're the worst defensive team in the league and we need to trade BI because he doesn't fit long term with Zion.

He also basically said all of our picks are worthless and that we shouldn't have traded Jrue Holiday.

So yeah typical Bill

Zach Lowe and Simmons are on two different ends of the spectrum IMO.

Zach Lowe talks about how he goes through a pretty rigorous routine night in and night out in making sure he basically gets a chance to watch a good chunk of every teams games over the course of a month. He creates a schedule, utilizes DVR to cut out breaks, and has a set rotation of teams plus any big match ups. Then if he is doing any sort of write up, deep dive, or featuring a team on his podcast he goes back and watches more film and starts diving deeper into the numbers as well.

So I tend to find Lowe actually provides good insight as a national guy because he really does do what a national guy should do and take a broad perspective, through a rigorous process, and offer insight from it.

Simmons is a Celtics fan that offers gut derived hot takes and is the ultimate prisoner of the moment commentator imo. He’s the guy that will be your hype man one second(Pels are must watch League Pass last season) to the ultimate doom sayer(BI and Zion are trash, team will never be anything!). Simmons is basically a more laid back, non-antagonistic version of Stephen A.

Yeah he’s the same guy that a year ago was calling the AD trade the most monumentally great trade in losing a superstar ever, rightfully pointing out how it re-wrote the rules on superstar trades and made OKC possible.

He bounces from extreme to extreme too often and tends to not really think through his logic and opinions enough.

I also just don’t know why you do 45 minutes on the Pels when neither of the people discussing have a lot of familiarity? Kevin O’Connor can be a bit of a prisoner of the moment too, and he always seems to play into his colleagues opinions a little too much, but at least he has followed the team somewhat this season and could actually offer some interesting insight(he actually talked at decent length on The Ringer Univesrity podcast about Zion’s transformation into a facilitator and why it’s so deadly). Simmons and Mahoney talking Pels is like me and someone here asked to do 45 minutes talking about the Pistons. I’ve watched maybe 4 games of that team this season and I’m not about to pretend I can have an intelligent discussion about that teams future or chemistry.

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Are they considered the 2nd best picks in the league?

I don't know enough about each pick to have a stance but an interested in hearing why.

I feel like some of these picks are overrated

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Yes because we have the most of them.

Teams can only offer their own picks every other year so they're limited in how many 1sts they can add to a deal.

Other than OKC, we have more future 1sts than any other team out there.

There's also more value in the bundle than in each individual pick. It's hard to put a value on the 2024 Lakers pick individually. But if I asked you what are the chances in the next 7 years that

* LeBron, AD or Giannis lose most of a season to injury
* LeBron declines and does a Kobe style farewell tour while clogging the cap to keep AD from having help
* Giannis demands a trade before his new contract is up.

I think you'd say the chances aren't terrible that something like that happens and one of those picks is great. So there's value in the bundle, but that value is hard to trade unless you trade most of your picks.

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Could you imagine being McNamara right now or one of his little minions that thinks he preaches the gospel lol

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What has McNamara been saying? Aside from his drunken rant last Friday