re: Who are Pelicans best 8 players when healthy ?

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He hasn't played well for quite a bit, but I'm confident he's one of our best 8 players overall

What specifically leads you to this conclusion?

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I truly can not understand why people act like this is a new thing. As if he’s just had a few bad games. The guy is career 37.1% from the field. And he’s never been a good defender and I don’t expect him to get any taller. Sometimes you just need to state the obvious.

Zion
Ingram
Cj
JV
Herb
Jaxson
*I would like to put Herb and Jaxson over JV but JV right now, is more important to the team/effects winning more. But both could pass him up and that tells you a lot about the potential of this team if a 21 and 23 year old can pass up a 18ppg top 5 center in value and still only be the 4th most valuable person.
Graham
Kira
* Simply based on potential and the flashes we saw right before the injury. Kira playing with an improved Jaxson could be really nice.

Im not going to throw Nance in just because I havent seen enough of him and obviously dont know how he will fit in with this squad.

We were in unanimous agreement that we needed an upgrade from Graham. We got the upgrade in CJ. BI, CJ and Zion can all run the offense. We simply don't need Graham, I'd play Jose over him and I acknowledge Jose is not sharpshooter either, he just plays with more effort and energy and makes good things happen. I am sure Graham is a nice guy but his signature 3pt shot without running any offense when you have guys like CJ and BI on the floor is DUMB. If Graham played is role (4th/5th scoring option when on the floor) and played with some more hustle he could be an OK 2nd unit option, as he is now he needs to ride the bench and come in for garbage time and injuries.

The way you are wording that makes it sound like I was the guy with the Jax take. I’ve always been Team Jax is AD without the same opportunity or role take, not that you should cut him bc he’s not worth $5M lol.

I realize maybe you are talking about the other guy, but the way you framed it was a bit confusing.

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What specifically leads you to this conclusion?

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Past history

Just look at Graham last season. I'm not saying it was some other worldly season, but how many players on our team have ever had a season of that caliber? Or like a Herb Jones, where you're 100% certain that right now can play at a higher level than that.

BI
CJ
Z
Herb
JV
Jose
Jax
Graham

I'd probably put Nance at 8 if I knew what we were getting.

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The way you are wording that makes it sound like I was the guy with the Jax take. I’ve always been Team Jax is AD without the same opportunity or role take, not that you should cut him bc he’s not worth $5M lol.

I realize maybe you are talking about the other guy, but the way you framed it was a bit confusing.

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No it was directed towards the guy I replied to. I know you've defended him for a while. Him and I went back and forth in a thread not too long ago. This was when Jaxson was playing good for about a month and almost nobody was willing to give him any props. Not that he deserved a ton of praise but he was starting to roll even when he was playing the 5. People were blind with hatred for Jaxson and were unwilling to give credit where credit was due. Him to the point where he thought nobody would take on a 5 million dollar salary.

Another poster who praises him now and wants him at the 4 made the point that it wasn't even worth giving him minutes, especially at the 4 and told me basically "give it a rest, he fricking sucks."

So yea, I had to bring it up since he was saying how laughable some of the takes on here are. Which is true, but he doesn't need to act like he immune to it.

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57.2% was the average true shooting percentage for the 2020/2021 season.

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Compare it to guards. Bigs muddy that up a lot.

Pels fans praised the F out of Lonzo for his shooting last season, and rightfully so. Lonzo's TS% was .551 last season.

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I’ve looked at his numbers the past 20 games, this season, last season and his entire career. They aren’t good.

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Right, no one is arguing otherwise. I'm arguing that he's much more likely to play to his career numbers than his last 20 games numbers going forward. Any top 8 you come up with will have probably at least a couple of guys who you think can be as good or better as last year's Graham but have never actually done so/we haven't seen it yet.

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who even at his career best was below average offensively.

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Was he? Again, his shooting efficiency was NOT inefficient for his position, and he's a dude who we know has averaged nearly 8 assists a games, so he does have the facilitating ability too if needed, though he hasn't been asked to play that role this season.

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The point is that Jose, at this point in time, is drastically better for this team than Graham

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Right now at this moment, I agree.

I'm not as confident that'll be the case 1 or so months from now.

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I truly cannot comprehend how someone who watches most pelicans games can not see that Jose just is overall better at basketball than DG

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If there is a logical reason why Graham has been as subpar as he has, you'd have a point, but I'm not sure I see one. He's just playing poorly.

Jose has been better than Graham lately, he's also playing at a level he can't sustain, just like Graham won't continue playing like he has the last 20 games more than likely.