6th Man? CJ McCollum should come off the bench for the New Orleans Pelicans next season

6th Man? CJ McCollum should come off the bench for the New Orleans Pelicans next season

the Pelicans have a big decision to make about trading Brian Ingram but I’ll tell you why the biggest move the Pelicans could make is bringing CJ McCollum in Off the Bench it’s the Wednesday episode of Locked on Pelicans let’s go you are locked on Pelicans your daily New Orleans Pelicans podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team everyday welcome to another edition of locked on Pelicans the daily podcast covering your favorite team the New Orleans Pelicans in NBA part of the lockon podcast Network your team every day available wherever you get your podcast and available on YouTube I’m your host Pelicans Insider credential member of the media Jake Madison at Nola Jake on Twitter here with you all on this Wednesday and we are going to take a break from the trade talk from the draft talk to look at bringing CJ McCullum in Off the Bench could he move from a starter to the bench be the six-man for the team because I do think it makes a lot of sense I’ll explain why they’re going to look at why they need to consider this and what it would look like in practice then we’ll get into a couple of news and notes for the Pelicans not on herb day Bryce and Graham being upgraded to promoted to the general manager as well today’s episode of Locked on Pelicans is brought to you by Game Time download the game time app create an account and use code locked on MBA for $20 off your first purchase terms apply so let’s get well first thank you for making lockdown Pelicans your first listen today and every day we are here Monday through Friday the number one Pelicans podcast covering everything you want looking at all the biggest topics around the team and giving you the Insight you can’t get anywhere else so please subscribe wherever you get your podcast join over 10,000 Pelicans fans on YouTube as well so why are we even having this discussion why are we even having this discussion about bringing CJ McCullum in Off the Bench and I do think there’s a couple of reasons why and it starts with truly just this one the big three of Zion Williamson Brandon Ingram and C CJ McCullum didn’t truly click and work out there on the court this season The Big Three had a net rating of plus three in 1,533 possessions plus three is good it’s not negative right one of the things though when you look at a team overall when you’re looking at a team being a true title Contender if you’re an everyday of the show or a long time listener you’ve heard me say this before that number for your team-wide number needs to be plus six or better for your team as a whole your average right usually your net rating is going to be weighed down by your bench a little bit and then carried up by your starters right if the plus six is an average there’s of lineups above that and a lot of lineups below that your starters need to have the best lineup for the Pelicans big three to only have a plus three of their net rating together that’s not going to get it done and we kind of saw that that’s why this team 49 wins is good and I’m happy with that but it doesn’t feel like they ever unlocked their true potential and maybe it’s just combinations of players not truly working so the big three only a plus three is not great but when you look at these players individually or kind of in in Duos it looks significantly better in some capacity right CJ McCullum with Zion and Nob brain and Ingram on the court is a plus 5.4 in 1,271 possessions I have the numbers here CJ mccum with brandan Ingram and no Zion on the court so CJ and bi plus 13.2 that’s the kind of number you want to see 836 possessions these are all per cleaning theeg glass.com and then you get Zion wison with Brandon Ingram and no CJ McCullum is 13.4 in 706 possessions those numbers are good so if you don’t end up trading brain Ingram or even if you do you need to find a way to kind of make the most out of all of these players and splitting them up a little bit more definitely is the way to do that the way to do that then the easiest way to do that is by starting CJ McCullum on the bench Zion with bi without CJ is plus 13.4 if you can’t find the right trade for bi this is a pretty big shakeup move that maybe unlocks your team because you can get a guy like Trey Murphy into the starting lineup and Trey is tied to that he’s impactful you need to find a way to get him out there on the court more so this accomplishes that say there’s no trade for Brandon Ingram you run something like Brandon Ingram herb Jones Trey Murphy Zion Williamson and whoever your starting center is going to be you’re lacking a traditional point guard and maybe some creation at the guard position but at that point herb Jones is kind of your point guard bi is kind of your point guard in the back court there and you also have Point Zion you don’t need a traditional point guard when you have Ingram and Zion handling the ball for the most part and taking up the majority of your possessions there I think that could work and you get Trey in his court gravity with the shooting out there it also adds some length out there with that starting lineup as well so finding a way to get Trey Murphy into the starting lineup without having to maybe Elevate him over herb Jones this is a way that you could go and do something like that you then look at CJ McCullum by himself him without Zion without Brandon Ingram on the court is a plus 6.7 it’s not terrible if he’s anchoring a bench lineup more on that in the next segment when we talk about rotations because I think when people say bring CJ Off the Bench they don’t truly realize how this would work and you’re not going to really ever see him with just four you know five bench guys out there on the court or five non-starters I should say bench guy sounds like negative there and that’s not necessarily the case but CJ can definitely kind of anchor some of those lineups I think and we’ll go into what the rotations could look like with all of that but if you can’t trade Ingram this is definitely an option if you trade Ingram for another guard this is also probably an option too say you trade him let’s use dejon Murray as the example in this show I think Trey young who’s in my opinion of the two the better one to go and get but I think Murray is probably more attainable so more realistic let’s say you have a starting lineup then of De D Murray herb Jones Trey Murphy Zion Williamson and your starting center whoever that might be okay so you get those kind of positions filled then you bring CJ Off the Bench that works too it’s about finding ways to just kind of maximize the guys that you have and get this starting unit better one of the things that the Pelin definitely ran into in the postseason was that you know for the most part this year their starters just kind of maintain the status quo or were a little bit below average and the bench really beat up on people Jose Alvarado Naji Marshall Trey Murphy beat up on opponent bench units that’s great that works in the regular season doesn’t work in the postseason when teams tighten up their rotations and it’s worth noting that really the Pelicans didn’t win any of those bench minutes in that Series against the Oklahoma City Thunder they couldn’t even win the minutes when Gordon Hayward was out there on the court you’re not going to win very many playoff series and you need to build with that in mind too if that’s going to be the case your starters need to be the ones that elevate you and this is maybe a way of kind of creating a more impactful starting lineup but then still rain maintaining a lot of balance along the roster so if CJ McCullum is coming off of the bench what’s the rotation look like and I have some more data and stats to share with you because we kind of have seen it before there’s a blueprint for that that we saw this past season let’s break down what the rotation would look like potentially with CJ McCullum Off the Bench that’s coming up here next in today’s episode of locked on 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a few things but one of the things that jumps out to me when looking at the numbers and even the eye test backs is up I went back and watched a bunch of the film on this CJ McCullum and yonas Val chunis in lineups together were good when you didn’t have Zion or Brandon Ingram out there on the court so you can have CJ and as center anchor the unit CJ and Jonas valunas were plus 8.7 out there on the court so this is how you start to build out a rotation you know Zion tends to sub out somewhere between the six-minute Mark or the 9 Minute Mark of the first quarter you can sub CJ mccullin let’s say you still have Brandon Ingram here bring C J in now CJ and bi are on the court together and without Zion that was 13.2 positive last season that seems to work but one of the lineups that you also saw that was great last season was CJ a center and kind of Shooters they did a lot of this earlier on in the year and went away from it a little bit later as the year went on but it won them a game against the Oklahoma City Thunder on the road CJ comes in and just runs pick and rolls with your Center and maybe has some room to get to the the basket or you kick it out to open Shooters so you can sub Dyson Daniels in because you need one Defender out there for you know uh for herb Jones let’s say you sub in Jordan Hawkins for somebody and then you keep In Trey Murphy so all of a sudden now you’re running a lineup of CJ Hawkins Dyson Trey and your starting center that was an effective lineup last year for this team or if Z you know Brandon Ingram is not the guy anymore you then can sub in CJ for Zion and it’s dejonte Murray CJ McCullum Trey Murphy Jordan Hawkins and a center or you even can instead of Hawkins could have herb Jones out there for more defense but still get the shooting you know you get some height in the back court then with Murray and CJ and you don’t worry about that kind of really short backourt pairing which is something that I would worry a little bit about with Darius Garland or Trey Young but Murray has size so I think that’s when you start to see that rotation you need some buying from the head coach and kind of assurances from the head coach that this might be kind of how this goes right you know you want more Shooters out there on the court with that lineup and to play you know as close to five out as possible even though you have a center but the center they’re hopefully going to bring in you know ideally might shoot a little bit too but then what this also allows you to do is when Zion Subs back in and maybe he Subs in for Murray and this situation right so you have CJ Zion and then you can bring in Larry Nance Jr and your starting center gets his rest and I think that’s how you start to build this rotation out a little bit and it sounds like it would start to be pretty effective it also adds a little bit more balance to your lineups which I think can be good while those three guys just weren’t working well together this maybe elevates it while also providing a big boost for the bench and when you get into a playoff situation and if you’re doing this and teams are shortening their rotation so you’re not going against 10th 11th 12th men that’s good you got CJ mccullam in then those guys are then really you know that that’s a very useful player to have to kind of anchor that lineup against the 67 e guys of other opponents and worth keeping in mind too is it’s called a rotation for a reason right you know they don’t tend to just do full line changes here like you do in hockey do they even still do that in hockey I don’t even know you’re not going to just you know bring Five Guys out and put five bench ones in there’s a rotation for it and you almost never see five bench guys on the court at once unless it’s like a blowout game right and that’s something that’s worth keeping in mind too you know if you go and look at uh NBA rotations and there’s a couple go to NBA rotations doino you can see kind of a visualization of it you’re never going to really see a lineup where it’s five guys coming off of the bench this helps you kind of visually see how they did this all season long or in groups of games and when you kind of get that data you can see when guys Sub in for the most part but it’s not going to be five bench guys unless things are going really really bad there’s usually at least one of the starters out there at any given time and so it makes it even easier to do that when you have three guys that you really trust and one of them is off of the bench that definitely assures you that one of those guys is going to be out there on the court at any given time and I think that’s important so even if you don’t trade Brandon Ingram and it’s more likely they will than they won’t I think at this point but you’re not guaranteeing that whatsoever you can still just get you what you need and one of the things we know say they don’t trade BR Ingram there’re still need to be bigger shakeups right there has to be a shakeup you can’t do the exact same thing it have enough data to know that it didn’t work David Griffin said that in his end of season media availability too that we’ve seen it enough and it didn’t really work and he even spoke about how the big three didn’t really work together on the court but you know when you kind of broke them down into Duos there they were all really good that is then just maximizing your players and doing what you need to do with this team a shakeup though can be moving a guy from a starting role to the bench that’s a big shakeup that is a significant shakeup if the you know if the only change to the starting lineup next season is that there’s a new center in place of Jonas valent chunis that’s not a big shakeup right depending on who the center is let’s say but that’s probably not going to be a big enough shakeup cjf the bench is the question then becomes you know would he accept this sort of thing is this the role that he would be willing to do that’s the tougher cell you know one of the things we know about CJ and I think that you’ve seen from CJ is you know he’s a professional so if this is what they wanted to do would he do it like yes I think that is safe to say he would do it he’s going to do what the team wants he’s paid to do what the team wants I feel like he would go along with this doesn’t mean it’s going to be the easiest thing for him he has started every single game since his third year in the league first year played 38 games came off the bench second year 62 games started three of them but came off of the bench in his third year in Portland started 82 games and one most improved player he expects to be a starter and these guys have a lot of Pride That Matters to them I know we always say on here right it’s not if you start it’s if you close the game and you could still close the game with CJ McCollum but to them starting matters being out there for tip off matters would it force him to request trade anything like that no I don’t think so and I don’t think it would be the easiest thing to find a trade for CJ McCollum if that were to be the case but you would need his kind of Buy in on this too I think he would do it maybe begrudgingly but that doesn’t mean that’s the ideal situation and how you want things to go with a player of his caliber but he also again is a professional he’s the head of the Players Association you know knows kind of that this is a business and how things work he’s seen it from all angles there is also a lot of Pride there he’s talking about it before you know he wants to go out and he wants to win and he wants to play and he wants to compete and kind of build all of that you’re not doing that as much it feels like coming off of the bench even if you’re playing the same a lot a minute and closing games but I think this might be the way to go for the Pelicans what do you think let me know in the comments Down Below on YouTube do you think he should come off the bench do you think he should still be starter do you want the shooting out there like he’s not bad I know a lot of y’all are going to jump in the comments and be like he’s terrible he’s not good maybe in clutch situations he’s not great didn’t really show up in the playoffs but this is someone who shot 43% from three on 8.4 attempts per game if you want more shooting around Zion Williamson like CJ mcom fits that bill so you need to kind of find the balance of that right how do you kind of do that is it then you leave CJ in the starting lineup and put in Trey for herb Jones to give you more shooting or does that compromise your defense too much we’re about to talk about herb Jones in the next segment here we love this dude is that what we want to do those are the type of questions that are facing the Pelicans right now now but you can make a pretty easy case for CJ McCullum coming off of the bench and that being maybe the best role for him so coming up next not on herb Jones day here in Louisiana which is really cool to see we also have some news in the front office and the you know after the departure of Tran langden let’s talk about that coming up here next in today’s episode of lock on Pelicans and thank you for making lock on Pelicans your first listen today and every day we are here Monday through Friday the number one Pelicans podcast covering everything you want to know about this Pelicans team so please subscribe wherever you get your podcast join over 10,000 Pelicans fans on YouTube as well we are the number one Pelicans podcast breaking down everything you want to know about this team now for your second listen lockdown has launch the first ever National Sports 24/7 streaming Channel on YouTube it’s now also available on Amazon Fire TV in the free Fire TV channels app lock on sports today is here for you 24/7 covering the top sports stories of the day with the local Experts of locked on plus our national shows covering every League find locked on sports today now available on the free Fire TV channels app all right let’s switch gears from CJ McCollum and potentially being a six-man here for the team it was announced as they were signing bills into place in the Louisiana legislature today by the governor that it is not on herb Jones day not on herb Day on May 28th this is very very cool this is just cool I don’t want to get political or anything like that don’t have any interest in talking about anything with that here I just think it’s cool that not on herb day is a thing in Louisiana on May 8th that is awesome they talk about his accomplishments in the actual thing that the governor signed being named to the NBA’s all defense of first team the only non- Center to be included Greg papovich telling his players to avoid herb Jones like the plague and if herb Jones is there pass it to someone else Superstar players like Paul George Donovan Mitchell Deonte Murray Zion willamson and others respectfully acknowledge the defensive prowess of herb Jones and this past season herb Jones was one of four players in the NBA to compile at least 100 Steals and 60 blocks ranked fourth in the NBA both contested and blocked three-pointers which is not easy to do just I don’t know he’s an awesome player right he filmed a quick little video like thanking everyone and it’s just very clear that he was like at the Pelicans facility just working out he could be partying he could be doing other things he could be doing whatever on vacation no he’s in the lab in the gym working just doing his thing because that is what herb Jones does he’s just such a fun player to have have and you just so much enjoy having this guy on the team and again that contract that they signed him to this past season paying more money needing to dump some money to get under the luxury tax because of signing herb Jones to this contract but that was a pretty shrewd piece of business here when we look at the front office whether we’re talking you know criticizing them or not you got to factor things like that in there too that they made this move kind of realizing that he was going to be so good that let’s sign him to a below Market deal if he was a restricted free agent going into this season or anything like that or just a free agent at all you’d be paying more you don’t have to worry about that now you know 12 point 12 million this year 13 million next year 14 in 2025 2026 and basically 15 million in 2026 2027 you’re going to be having NBA players earning close to $70 million That season herb Jones is going to be getting 15 it’s going to be underpaid it’s going to be one of the best contracts in the league when you look at the way his offense has improved in terms of the shooting the the the individual points per game didn’t go up that much by about one but it was more about just the shooting and the spacing and that is really important and if he starts to really shoot with volume that’s a player that is going to be so valuable the Pelin front office realized that early on and they made the right decisions here you know we give that front office a lot of you know criticism and it’s deserved I think but they also do some good things and that move to extend herb Jones in the way that they did was an exceptionally smart one looking at it now right when there’s negative things we say there’s negative things when there are positive things we got to call those out as well in also front office news by various places being reported here that Bryson Graham has been promoted to the general manager of the pelan here in the wake of trasan langon leaving to go run the Detroit Pistons this is no surprise we even said it here on lock on Pelicans this was just the expected move uh Bryson Graham has been here since 2011 as an intern working his way up I think he’s 37 years old now the GM of the Pelicans has had a lot of influence on their drafting scouting those type of things you know was a big involvment in drafting herb Jones and Trey Murphy too looking at Jose Alvarado I think this is a good move I think this is a good move because they’ve done a good job with this for the most part even identifying guys like Naji Marshall as we said Jose Alvarado drafted guys that have an impact on your roster is vitally important so seeing those guys you know do well herb Jones being herb Jones we just talked about the impact of Trey Murphy here too yeah keep some of that continuity in the front office I don’t have a problem with that right I’ve talked the past week or so a lot about how I don’t think people actually realize what goes on in the front office and while David Griffin is like the lead decision maker there’s a lot more that goes into it and that work that other people do isn’t just for for nothing and it’s not David Griffin just being like okay I don’t care I’m going to do what I want he values the input of these people so having smart basketball people in the building retaining smart basketball people like this Tran langden wasn’t like just jump and [ __ ] because this place sucks right he he got a promotion and way more money good for him but keeping a smart guy like Bryson Graham who maybe traan langon wanted to take with him to be able to retain that type of person here in the building is only a good thing for what is such a pivotal off season for this team they look at the data they do the work I’m excited to see you know where this team goes from here and we’re going to be talking about it on the locked on Pelicans podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day wherever you get your podcast and on YouTube as well that’s going to do it for this episode of Locked on Pelicans I appreciate yall so much for watching as always I’m your host Jake Madison Nola Jake on Twitter locked on Saints make that your second listen today and as always be back with you all tomorrow we’re going to be talking more Pelicans maybe answering some of your questions on the show as well see yall next time

The New Orleans Pelicans want to shake up things next season and moving CJ McCollum to the bench as the 6th Man could do it. Jake Madison explains why it is a smart idea to change the starting lineup and looks at what the rotation would be around Zion Williamson. He also looks at how a Brandon Ingram trade could also influence things. Plus, May 28th is Not On Herb Day in Louisiana, and Bryson Graham has been promoted to General Manager for the Pels.

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