New Orleans Pelicans Recap: What’s Next for Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram?

New Orleans Pelicans Recap: What’s Next for Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram?

it’s time to talk about the New Orleans Pelicans their season what it means moving forward are there big changes coming Michael Bolton does he have the answers thanks Josh it’s Michael Bolton here and it’s time for another episode of the locked on Fantasy Basketball podcast let’s get to it let’s get to it indeed you are locked on Fantasy Basketball your daily fantasy basketball podcast part of the locked on podcast [Music] Network hello and welcome to the locked on Fantasy Basketball podcast brought to you by basketball monster my name is Josh Lloyd and definitive can you define that I’m also the lead fantasy Analyst at basketball monster.com and you can find me on Twitter as always red rockball on Tik Tok at red rockball and on Instagram at lockon Fantasy Basketball today’s episode is brought to you by Price piix the easiest and the most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports go to price.com lock. NBA use the code all lowercase locked on NBA for a first deposit match up to $100 thank you also for making locked on Fantasy Basketball your first listen every day we are free we’re available and you can double bang it here on all platforms thumb up comment you don’t need me to tell you that but what you do need me to tell you is there is a live NBA draft show 8:00 p.m. Wednesday 26th of June 26th I think yeah 26th it’s um pinned at the top of the YouTube page you can easily find it there just make sure you’re there and we will talk draft as it goes down yesterday nice show with Matt Lawson talking undervalued Dynasty prospects in the NBA currently and then some differences that we have on our overall draft board there’s going to be another mock draft next week another special guest draft analyst talking about their draft model and some of the things that that spits out so that’s exciting for next week too and then the draft is the week after we’ve still got seven I think it’s seven team um reviews maybe it’s eight team reviews to go Celtics 3-0 up over the Dallas Mavericks you would think that it’s just not going to happen for Dallas unfortunately not going to get into huge um post-mortems on that series at the moment what I say it’s unfortunate for Dallas it is it’s uh really great for Boston who have clearly been the best team all season and deserve the championship when they win it but we’ll talk about that when we get to those individual teams in the next week or so so we are here now to talk about the New Orleans pel a team that I don’t think people know how good this team was they were 49 and 33 the reason we’re doing them so late is they had the 20 well they got the they theoretically have the 23rd pick in the draft meaning there is what seven teams better than them they were the eighth best record overall ridiculous I don’t think we knew that well not that we don’t know it cuz it’s there it’s obvious we can it’s we can find it out but when people would have said to you hey were the Pelicans a top 10 NBA team I don’t think many people said yeah of course easy they were and obviously we had Zion be healthy most of the season and then of course we get to the playoffs and he’s not there so they lose in the first round but they are this seems good they’re very good but they still don’t feel right and I’ll explain what I mean about that a little bit later on I should have dropped in the old um the graphic that I made the old team overview graphic we’ll do it now 49 to 33 with a plus 4.4 net rating they were 13th on offense eighth on defense their preseason over under was 44 a half we knew that this team was quite good the year before but then of course Zion and Ingram went down and everything turned to crap after that but they smashed through that 44 and a half I actually only had them at 44 in my first over under run just before the season I did bump them to 47 so I hit the over but still didn’t get enough wins there they are a very clear uh 50 win not a clear 50- win team but a team that’s got the ability to win 50 games their big question’s going to be though what what do they do now we’ll get into that in a second they do have pick 21 in this draft that is the Bucks pick their pick is 23 so they had swap rids due to the Drew Holiday trade so they they move up two spots not a big deal not sure what they do there but we know that there is a gaping hole on this team at Center there’s one point guard as well I think you’ll find someone at 21 there as a center kware Dron Holmes Eve Missy Zack Ed probably not but there are going to be some centers available KY Kyle filipowski maybe and not saying that guy could be an impact guy straight away CU it’s hard to judge or hard to expect that from a rookie but not sure where else they get in that Center to be honest so they need to do something with that pick their most common starting group for the season is the group that you think was CJ McCullum herb Jones Brandon Ingram Zion Williamson and the big fow yonas valent chunis it was not their best lineup their best lineup had a staggering net rating of plus 32.1 McCullum Jones Ingram Murphy and Nance it’s no one surprised that valent chunis isn’t in that but Nance is it is a little bit of a surprise to see that Zion Williamson isn’t in that best line now of course it’s small sample stuff but Zion isn’t there he’s replaced by Trey Murphy they are extraordinarily strong and deep but there are so many questions still about what lineups and what this team is going to do in terms of free agency Daren sebron who um is a two-way guy who just we didn’t really see anything of him he’s a restricted guy don’t really think we need to care too much there but what we do need to care about is what happens with the unrestricted players there is jonis valan chunis Naji Marshall and Cody zala don’t worry about zala too much Marshall’s important but his importance on this team is probably much lower than it is on other teams because you’ve got just so so many options here there’s obviously Ingram and Zion there’s herb there’s Trey there’s Dyson Daniels there’s Jose Alvarado not that they’re wings but their guys who can sort of move around and shift positions um there’s Jordan Hawkins so Marshall might get a contract they don’t you need to or they don’t feel like matching or coming in with that offer or Mar Marshall wants to go somewhere for more playing time he may or may not be back now the valentus one is a real problem because yeah we know that fits bad with him alongside Z we know that defensively he struggles we know that theoretically he can shoot but he doesn’t he’s so slow at getting that shot off he doesn’t take enough threes so the spacing doesn’t work he a bad fit but how the hell do they replace him who comes in and plays that role do they just bring him back and then maybe look to trade or on the flip side of that if valent Tunas leaves where does he go what team is signing him who’s prioritizing valent chunis I don’t know his situation which then ties into their situation at Center uh it’s one of the big offseason questions now he could just come back because there’s no market for him and they can’t find anyone else and then we play the same game again replace 21 22 minutes a night and there are times when he’s good and times when he’s bad and do the whole thing over again but that is a huge question mark across the offseason two players have Team options one of them is Jeremiah Robinson Earl who after the Thunder who had like 18 guaranteed contracts had to cut guys JRE got cut um he’ played pretty well the year before as a second round pick but we knew that those sort of players like Robinson ear who sort of filling in gaps waiting for other guys to develop or to come back from injury like Chad like they just he was on a high level um long-term option he came across on a two-way to the Pelicans he he played some some interesting minutes um then they converted him to a full-time contract whatever like I spent too much time on Jeremiah Robinson now Jose Alvarado he has a team option they’re definitely picking that up he’s underpaid he’s limited but he is underpaid so that will definitely be picked up I can’t say why it wouldn’t be unless they’re not picking it up so that they can sign him to and accept whatever all that stuff doesn’t matter there are two players with non-g guaranteed contracts one of them is Matty Ice Matt Ryan who I bet you didn’t know was actually on this team or maybe you did CU he had that hot run earlier in the season and then everyone came back and he didn’t play but the other one who’s got who contract is non- guaranteed is Zion now that doesn’t really matter because they’re not cutting him but he didn’t hit the um thresholds the benchmarks in his contract that would make his contract fully guaranteed he didn’t hit them so he’s not guaranteed this year and next year and the year after it doesn’t matter they’re not cutting him but he’s non- guaranteed so I thought I should mention that and then we get into the really interesting stuff because they’ve got a few players on expiring deals one of those is Brandon Ingram a name that is mentioned every 5 minutes when someone talks about the offseason will does does he fit with the Pelicans are they going to trade him off the Pelicans and the Cavs the Cavs should they’ve got too many centers and too many point guards so they should send one of those to the Pelicans and then they get a wing back the fit seems perfect it’s like one of those perfect trades that you might make in fantasy or on 2K when you go huh I I I need a point guard you’ve got too many I need to send you got too many but we got an extra Wing do you want him it doesn’t work like that in the NBA but it’s going to get thrown out all the time Ingram for Garland England Ingram for Jared Allen throw picks whatever side you want on that but he’s in the last year of his contract they there’s all these Whispers they’re not going to put a max deal on Ingram I don’t know big big chance and by big it’s probably 20% chance but big chance he is moved and it might be this offseason the other one is Larry Nance who’s unrestricted we’ll talk about Nance a little bit later on but while he’s still really good there were signs of slippage and then there’s Trey Murphy who will be um a restricted free agent after this coming season but this offseason coming up he will be restricted uh sorry rookie EXT eligible so do they give him that big extension I would think he’d be looking for it but there’s also the chance that if they do move on from Ingram Murphy becomes a full-time starter and then he could literally get a Max contract after this season so it could be a tyres Maxi type situation as well where he holds off although the Maxi one was more team side to preserve cap space it might be the same with Murphy he’s a really interesting one the other one is EJ Liddell cool he’s got a team option that’ll make make him restricted but we don’t really I don’t think think we really care too much about EJ Liddell who missed his entire first season with an ACL and then came back and we didn’t really see much of him this year today’s episode is brought you by prize piix prize piix is America’s number one fantasy sports app with more than 5 million members it’s also the most fun the most exciting and the easiest way to get in on the action and watch your favorite sports and players all you got to do is pick between two to six individual player stat projections stick them together win an entry and you can win up to 100 times your money back the NBA Finals is’s not much time left maybe one more game NHL finals are on but there’s so much other sport Major League Baseball heading towards the All-Star break there the WNBA has started off look at angel Reese’s um individual sta projections check those out see yeah does that make sense for your lineups I don’t know but you can have a look at it all the sports are there PGA NASCAR it’s all available over on price picks and there is a way that you can turn 10 bucks into ,000 with as little as four correct picks so download the app use the code lock on NBA for a first deposit match up to $100 download the app price Pi use the code locked on NBA for a first deposit match up to $100 price picks pick more pick less it is that easy okay let’s talk about the Players let’s start with the starters it’s really really obvious I think who the starters are on this team there are six of them I know we only start five guys at a time but this team has six starters it’s very cut and dried CJ McCullum is one of those players that annoys me no end because I watch him play and I go I don’t know about this this doesn’t really make a lot of sense and I obviously was very wrong on CJ this season CJ is now going to be 33 at the beginning of next season he played 66 games in 33 minutes my idea my thought on CJ was hey we’ve seen these numbers in New Orleans but he’s played like five games alongside Ingram and Zion at some point that number is going to rise and I cannot see a situation in which if you were a coach all players on that team you’d go Ingram’s there and Zion’s there everybody step back and let CJ cook so I thought his usage would come down I thought his assist rate would come down I thought all that would happen but it didn’t like they went to way more CJ than I thought was necessary so that means means that his production it did drop a little bit but it was way better than I thought I thought he would take a significant hit in my three star uh rule of the third guy taking the hit the other two staying up he didn’t he didn’t take that hit he finished 46th in minus one rankings 52nd in points and his ADP was 83 now at some point 33-year old CJ who’s not really a point guard he is going to fall and he is going to fall hard and he’s is going to be a backup really quickly I just don’t know if it’s going to be this year coming up the next year I don’t know but I he is not the player that can maintain this level of production he’s not that star level player he averaged 20 points with 3.6 Tribbles 4.3 rebounds and 4.6 assists 0.9 Steals and the block numbers which was skyh high at the beginning the year as part of the Fred Van vet blocking Rule and then they fell back off when they changed that rule again or changed that interpretation he shot just 46 from the field and 83 from the line 49 on twos and 43 on three so there are two big big red flags in terms of this production carrying over will he play 33 minutes not probably will his usage enable 20 points per game don’t think so 4.6 assists debatable 43 on threes that’s a very high number that can easily fall back down and if that fall back falls back down that 46 from the field overall becomes 43 or 44 so it’s a big drop and the free throws this is a guy who used to be an elite free throw shooter in Portland and then had like two to three years of being a bad free throw shooter like 60 8% 70% and then back up to 83 so which one is it because you that’s that is a difference and even though you can punt free throws and all that stuff fewer free throws made means fewer scoring opportunities or fewer points and that was a big difference there for him the best comps for CJ Klay Thompson in year 11 and Kimber Walker in year 11 now we know that clay has um I got to do it he’s on been on watchh all season he fell why kber Walker in year 11 which I think was the 2022 season K’s out of the league in a year is not to say that CJ will be out of the league but that they are definite cautionary tales of how things can go south yeah quite quickly he was 87th percental CJ in EPM 79th in crafted that’s really strong and his offensive load was 87th percentile which is high it’s the lowest it’s been though since I think the 2020 season back with Dame and the Blazers it’s the lowest that’s been since then but it is still higher than I thought it would be and when we talk about Zion later you’ll see some discussions I’m going to have on that but of course that all could be turned upside down if ingrams are on this team then CJ’s load will stay and maybe rise but then you run into the efficiency issues I will never touch this guy in the top 50 again I’m telling you I just won’t do it so even though that I was wrong on him this season by a sizable amount I’m not going back to that well of a 33y old point guard who I do think shouldn’t be touching the ball as much and I think there’s going to be a significant and sharp drop I just won’t be T touching him probably in the top 70 to be honest you understand why I hope I hope let’s talk Ingram it was a down year for Brandon Ingram 72nd in minus one rankings 101st on Yahoo he played 64 games 33 minutes he’s only 27 51st in points Leagues with an adap of 52 people were taking in that 50 Mark the points League Mark was fine but we know in categories there are some real concerns with Ingram’s game and I have used Brandon Ingram’s name a lot during this season to be a guy that the casuals the real hoopers the Balon stops balone stops will tell you look at him he averages 21 five and six of course he’s an Allstar but whenever your team is allowing Brandon Ingram to do that there’s just significant limitations on what the overall upside is defensively he should be better he’s not he should be good at that three-point shooting huh is he good I’m not sure can he play off the ball not really is your team elite when he’s got the ball not really it’s that sort of player that you put him in a number one spot the numbers would be great he could easily average 27 6 and seven easily and your team would win 3 two games and in this they were good they got to 49 games 49 wins this season but Ingram still at times is just lost there were some drops in his game for Fantasy he still averag 21 points but 1.3 triples bro take some threes he was in the 21st percenti a three-point attempt rate you’re not a bad three-point shooter take him 36% from three that’s not awesome but he’s had better years 5.7 assists okay not really sure again that he should be getting the ball that much and defensively there’s just never going to be anything there8 Steals and and6 blocks 80% from the line now he went from a bad free throw shooter in LA to like an 87 guy in your lens and now he’s back to 80 80 as you’re well aware cuz you know numbers you’re a massive fan of the Arabic numeral system you know how they work 80 is average 87 is great so if he is an 87% free throw player then he is hitting that 80P at 50 probably he’s around that Mark if he’s hitting them at 80 then he’s not because the other stuff drops away his two best comps were year five and year six of Pascal sakam shakim I can see that low three-point attempt rate low defensive stats points rebounds assists he probably needs to um adapt a little bit more of the way Pascal plays in terms of role and Fit versus trying to be that number one guy which will never work I’ll say this it makes me sound like Ingram is bad he’s not as good he’s really good 88th percentile EPM 81 and CPM but man take some threes 21st percental with your attempt rate that’s the thing now that would impact his overall field goals but still despite never taking threes his field goal percentage was 49 that is just nowhere near efficient enough it’s really it’s actually quite bad efficiency like you don’t take threes these shots have to go in like if you look at his and you can’t see it but I’m going to look at it now his effective field goal percentage which weights three pointers 44th percentile 53.4% like that’s just not good enough Zion and Ingram 57 53 is not good enough true shooting 58 now that’s bumped by his free throw percentage but that’s Le average he needs to be better on all those things where he is in terms of fantasy value moving forward he is basically Prime now it’s just going to depend if he does get traded is it to a good team or a bad team because on a bad team he’ll be a top 40 player on a good team well I’m not even sure he hits 72nd because they might actually marginalize his ball handling even further because you don’t need him to do that and then his value is not there so that becomes yeah his value becomes very location dependent today’s episode is also brought to you by LinkedIn jobs small businesses hiring staff LinkedIn knows I know let’s not beat around the bush there are a lot of people to hire that are terrible they lie on their resume they apply for the wrong jobs and they screw your business over with LinkedIn jobs make sure you get the right candidates the qualified candidates that you need to be successful LinkedIn is not just another job Bard it’s it’s LinkedIn there’s a billion Professionals in fact a billion plus professionals that use LinkedIn and getting your job out to those people means that you are way more likely to get someone who fits the job in fact small business owners tell us or tell me via LinkedIn that they find a qualified candidate within 24 hours 86% of the time hiring is easy when you get that many quality candidates say two and a half small businesses two not 2 and a half half a business doesn’t exist 2 and A2 million small businesses use LinkedIn for hiring so post your job for free at linkedin.com lockon NBA that is linkedin.com loon NBA to post your job for free terms and conditions apply all right we’ve done those two it’s time for the biggest bird it’s time for Zion Williamson who was healthy until he wasn’t unfort which you know is one of my mantras he played 70 games Zion is still only 23 he’s going to be 24 next season play 32 minutes a night the amount of people that would come into comments on YouTube or tweet at me whenever I’d mentioned that Zion there’s value in drafting or whatever man he will never stay healthy he’ll never play 30 games he won’t even play 50 never going to happen right so thankfully also worth remembering when you’re thinking about a certain Ferrari driving point guard in Charlotte When someone tells you it’ll never happen it will I guarantee it will St will play games Zion Williamson played 70 games not a single person not even me who is very much of the you know how you know how I treat injuries and injury carryovers and all that stuff you know how I do it no way that I would have told you he played 60 I think I had him at 60 or 70 games I think I had him at 63 62 whatever something like that unbelievable but then pingy hamstring the playoffs I don’t know if it was serious or how serious it would have been because obviously the hamstring the year before cost him 3 months but that’s not great recurrent hamstring I will happily take stabs at drafting Zion again but there are numerous things we need to pay attention to he finish 52nd in minus one Yahoo got him at 95th again not not reflective of reality 35th in points Leagues with an ADP of 54 so ADP is obviously mixed between points and categories so there was a significant discount for Zion in a points League based on availability in category leagues that’s about the right spot and I think we’d probably look in that sixth round back in fifth round again I would guess but we know the limitations the problem I that I had with Zion this season he stayed healthy is that parts of his his game just changed he was a dominant Force dominant like actually when we say Unstoppable he was basically Unstoppable at the rim and then he just wasn’t he ended up with 23 points he’s never going to take threes that’s fine 0.1 threes six rebounds five assists 1.1 steals 7 blocks his block rate increased his steel rate increased his assist rate increased his free throws about the same he sits at like 70% but his Rim numbers went from 67 down to 64 now 64 is still a lead still really good actually it’s not lit it’s 57th percentile Zion should be 80 plus percentile finishing at the rim and he also his Rim attempts especially early in the season went way down he was sort of struggling we I thought CJ would have the problem how do we fit in next to Ingram and Zion but it was Zion who had the problems he couldn’t really sort of fit where he needed to now towards the end of the season his production jumped his defensive numbers jumped his Rim percentages his field goal percentages jumped up his assist uh jumped up his usage jumped up but it was still really frustrating to deal with that uh over the course of the season because yeah it was so low early on there are so many graphs you can have a look at to see like what his usage was and how low it was and it peaked at the end of the year his Rim percentages it was just frustrating to see all these dips we we know there’s going to be free throw issues the steals actually that’s above average now assists should be higher and there’s still room to grow here there is no reason Zion can’t be a 27o scorer with 60% field goals and six and a half assists with the same defensive numbers he should also be a better rebounder but I’m not going to count on that his two best comps were year two of Ben Simmons and year two of Billy Owens Golden State Warriors Legend interesting 89th percentile in EPM 72nd in CPM so still impactful but not as good as it could be this is where I don’t like it his box creation which is a stat I think it was Ben Taylor who invented this um that gives you an idea of the the creation responsibilities so creation self created creating shots for others Zion in the 77th percentile bro you need to be the the guy that’s attacking the rim kicking it out to everybody creating your own shot passing to others it does not need why are you so low on this box creation stat and that’s part of where I go the fit of Zion and Ingram doesn’t make sense this was the lowest box creation score of Zion’s career since his rookie season the overall number was 5.1 his rookie season was 4.7 it he needs the ball in his hands more and I do think that’ll come eventually for reference like 5.1 was his box creation mccullum’s 7.8 right in ingrams nine nine what is interesting is McCullum was 8.1 the year before dropped to 7.8 ingrams went from 10.7 to 9 Zion went from if I can find the Zion page Zion went from 5 um 5.7 it was let me check soorry 6.7 to 5.1 so I was out there thinking that CJ was going to take all the hit whereas he stayed the same and Ingram and Zion took the steps back but that Bo creation being that low is crazy like it’s crazy to me his offensive load being lower than ingrams is crazy and he’s still young you think that his Peak and Prime is going to be younger than most instead of being 27 to 30 it’s probably now 24 to 27 because of the injuries in the body but there are very clear easy Pathways for him to be a top 20 fantasy guy don’t Bank on it don’t draft that way don’t value that way but it’s very easy 27 points six rebounds 6 and 1 half assists defensive numbers maybe they improve who cares 60% plus from the field maybe the free throws improveed maybe they don’t but you just do everything like he could easily he could average 30 a game but like yeah it’s just frustrating it’s just frustrating now let’s look at the next guy let’s look at Herbal Life Jones one of the poster boys for don’t trust the yo rankings herb was quite good this season but we know there was so much inconsistency in his game he played 76 games he’s 25 a half 31 minutes a night 104th in minus one Yahoo tells me he’s 41st cool that’s great herb Jones a fourth round player H absolutely not what are we doing no he’s not don’t get sucked into that his ADP was 135 he was 137th in points leag yeah he’s not very good in points leagues we know this and his value is tied to defensive categories namely Steals and the way that he gets deals it’s very Bunchy 44444 22201 it’s all over the shop bad stretch good stretch good shooting numbers bad shooting numbers it’s all over the place it’s not consistent he averaged 11 points a game with one and a half threes this is where I I’ll tell you that 41 on Yahoo is just a nonsense number 11 points per game is so far below average 1.53 is below average 3.6 rebounds below average 2.6 assists below average it’s four categories straight away below average 1.4 steals that’s pretty good that’s well above average 8 blocks not a bad number pretty good about bang on average 50% from the field average 87 from the line very strong low volume not impactful and then it’s just cuz he doesn’t turn it over that those metrics tell you how good he is not that good not top 40 well not top 45 he’s not he’ll never get there I don’t think but he was awesome this season in his role he has turned from a complete non-shooter into a guy that you never want to give big volume to but they go in improving to 87 from the line is gigantic 42 from three is massive and it should give us gigantic and massive hope I’ll say those two words again in a play we’re going to talk about later in Dyson Daniels turning into a legitimate shooter strong finisher passing improved as well but you never want to give that big usage to Herb the best comp for him were year four of Danny Green that’s when he was with the Spurs and then Eddie Jones final year in La I think that was 85th percentile EPM 91st CPM got his first all defense nod what I find interesting he blocked point8 shots per game again League average 10th percentile in contesting shots at The Rim that’s a lot of blocks for never contesting shots at The Rim he is an elite Defender he’s an elite Defender and those steals are great but we also know when you’re hanging your hat on steals you’re going to fluctuate game by game week by week month by month but also year on year he might have two steals a game next season he might have one it could easily happen and then the fantasy stuff goes back and forth and if you ever draft herb Jones in a draft and you want to go early on him you basically then move into a spot where you’re you’re punting points that’s how it works because the big gap that you create there it’s so hard to get back and that’s again one of those Hang-Ups and issues you have with her awesome player defensively fantastic blocking that many shots without contesting shots is ridiculous the Improvement his shooting is massively commendable just doesn’t take enough of him you’re hitting him at 42% I need to see that’s Brandon Ingram numbers he needs to take more of them and he’s got some ability to to ramp up a little bit but he’s not going to be the first choice to ramp up we’ll talk about who that is a little bit later this is going real slow as I say my key catchphrase youus he’s 32 he played every game 23 minutes a night yahoo ranks him 74th no worries 7th round player yeah maybe close to sixth fantastic that’s definitely what he was 126th in minus one rankings 113th in points his ADP was 97 I was fine with him around the 105 110 mark because a I just wasn’t going to find a center to give me good rebound numbers in that area and that’s all I wanted him for and the year before I faded him because I said he’s not going to play when Zion’s there then Zion played 30 games and valent Tunis was better and this season I said well if Zion’s there he’s not going to play and Zion was there so he didn’t play 12 points nine rebounds two assists point4 steals point8 blocks 56 from the field he’s strong 61 on twos 79 from the line is great but he just got benched so many times he got benched at the start of second halfes now we saw some jump ups from him at times players would go out he’s the ultimate ramp up player Zion’s out you going to get big top 60 numbers from yonas but with the way the team is constructed it’s so hard to get this his comps LaMarcus Aldridge year 12 it’s an interesting one I guess it’s the lack of defensive stats and then it’s um serg Barker year 11 which is Toronto serg Barker which Serge who’s used to be an elite shop blocker I think it does escape our memory sometimes that his lat years he never blocked any shots Ser Bara and that’s why that the shape here is similar yonas with 67th percentile EPM 78th on 73rd on crafted yeah pretty good he’s a solid player he’s useful enough backup low minute starter but the fit here is horrendous and part of it is like you want someone next to Zion who’s a rim protector or a spacer and he’s neither 50 46th percentile Rim defense that’s really bad man he doesn’t block shots he contests a decent amount but he doesn’t block him teams just go through him and the fit on offense is bad as well that’s but then it ties back to like who wants him in free agency who do the Pelicans get that’s better and I’m not sure there’s a clear answer meaning do we just back in this dance again we are we probably are but he’s 32 won’t play 82 games again those minutes might drop further he basically I think moves to pretty close to undraftable or at least in the Harrison Barnes Kevin herder Zone where yeah you’ll finish 130th but I’m not touching there’s no point of me drafting you round 11 or 12 what’s the point of that I think that’s where we’re going to be with valunas next season the last guy is the interesting one one of the most interesting players in the NBA it is the player with one of the more annoying names and that is Trey Murphy it’s not Trey Murphy thei third you know this it’s Kenneth Murphy II third Trey is a nickname so you will never ever see me referred to him as Trey Murphy thei third I don’t know if his name is the most annoying it’s it’s up there you’re not Trey Murphy I third my guy because you know what your dad’s not Trey your dad’s Ken the other one that’s annoying is Paul George do you know that Paul George is actually Paul George Jr his dad is Paul George why do he why is he never Paul George II or Paul George Jr why why not I I don’t actually care that much but it’s just weird that he’s never referenced that way anyway or what about Del Curry II Steph I know obviously he goes by Steph anyway Ken Murphy he’s 24 he played 57 games now he would have gone his ADP was 118 he wasn’t drafted in 4% of leagues actually finished 110th in minus 106 on Yahoo so we saw what he did the year before highly highly skewed Yahoo rankings which I think had him at like 30th because he played every game I wouldn’t have know he only played 57 this year because injuries aren’t predictable so you’re real cautious with that but it was just a slow ramp back up but we also know part of the reason why Trey went off in year two Ingram was out Zion missed the last half of the Season Trey played 39 minutes a game and went bananas this season he entered the year with knee surgery and everyone was basically healthy so he played a hybrid bench starter role in just 30 minutes at some point this guy is very good he’s going to it’s almost like and I know I’m into baseball a lot at the moment watching a lot of baseball good sport that’s going on right and I’ve know how much baseball you know but like the Baltimore Orioles there’s just so many prospects on that team that they have to send guys down to Triple A there’s guys that can’t come up and get regular at bats they’re going to have to just do something to get these guys opportunities to play or move them on for other guys and that’s where at I think here with Trey he’s so good he’s very good you need 34 minutes a night of him but you can’t find it 15 points and three threes in just those 30 minutes five rebounds 0.9 Steals and half a block 44 and 82 including 60 on his twos and 38 on his 3es but that’s the rub isn’t it is that 44 overall is bad field goal percentage because he takes so many threes and he didn’t hit them at the elite level didn’t go 41 didn’t go 42 went 36 or 38 sorry as he becomes a bigger part of an offense or more minutes does that become a 39 38 guy regularly maybe but I think that offsets with usage like what’s best case for Trey one year in his future at 20 points per game seven rebounds three assists I think that that’s true I think he’s a pretty solid Defender but defensive stats aren’t really there and that’s going to be the concern here from a fantasy perspective is that that Yahoo ranking was clear garbage the year before clear but does he have the overall robust Fantasy game to be a perennial top 40 guy I don’t think so it’s points it’s threes it might be efficiency but because we use field goal percentage instead of effective field goal percentage it’s never going to be sitting 52 53 meaning he’s probably going to be average to negative in that category and he can drive he can finish so he will get more free throw attempts but top 20 top 30 I don’t think we get there with Trey as much as I like him his best comps were hornets and Bulls Legends Scott barell year two and then the Orlando Magic version of the thick hogman Tobias Harris which actually makes a little bit of sense 84th percen all EPM 89th in crafted for Trey Murphy he’s just highly impactful his defensive rebounding quality pretty low 31st per on needs to be better there almost no chance to me he plays only 30 minutes next season or that he finishes outside the top 100 I there’s no way that’s going to happen I don’t think but it’s still we need the minutes we need to find where that spot is we are in year four he needs to be starting and how they do that I don’t know there are two ways you trade Ingram and he starts there you trade CJ and then you just have Ingram and Zion as full-time point guards I’m not sure that works though or you bench herb Jones but you can’t because of his defense or you play full-time Zion at Center and you can’t because he doesn’t defend well enough these are the these are the impossible questions this team has to try and answer but I am super excited about what Trey or 10 is going to bring us next season let’s go through some other players of note not many of them that are worth massive discussions let’s talk Larry Nance Larry Nance in the past he still was this season but in the past had always been this guy that when he played 25 minutes a night the fantasy metrics would love him and he’d be really useful but in a punt Point scenario this season we did see some drop off understandably knee injuries all through his career lot of health related problems everything seems to happen to him he still played 61 games only played 20 minutes but he’s 31 now he was technically their starting SL closing Center he didn’t start games obviously I don’t think he started a single game but he started a lot of second halves and he was the key piece but much like the way the Bulls use Alex Caruso they just can’t deploy Nance more than that he’s never going to be 28 minutes a night he was 185th in minus one 228 on points leagues he doesn’t do much for points he averaged six points half of three five rebounds one steel shot 57 and 77 from the field in the line he shot 42 on threes doesn’t take many of them good finisher but in the past used to be a much better steals Guy higher usage player more assists and better finishing he’s 32 well he will be 32 he’s 31 all that fell away he was still great for this team he still was a huge massive fit next to Zion not perfect but what he does is just winning basketball but at wasn’t as good 59th pero EPM 82nd on crafted his best comps Nick Collinson not Collinson Collison year9 and Kobe Dietrich who the hell is that in year9 his regularized adjusted defensive turnover number 99th percentile he makes stuff happen defensive event Creator but if this team thinks they’re relying upon Nance to be that Center again they shouldn’t he’s 31 the decline happened and it was pretty significant even though he was their best option most of the year and you would expect at this age that it starts to go south relatively quickly there’s not much more for Nance than these 20 minutes T night unfortunately any chance of him being a fantasy guy outside of a very shortterm streamer for most leagues I think he’s probably over what they do need though is for Dyson Daniels to step Step Up Daniels played earlier in his rookie season than I expected then hurt his ankle and then was sort of lost after that came in this season it was always going to be a real crunch for minutes because how deep this team was but he established himself when CJ went down with that numo thorax again established himself really strong role then he had a knee injury as well 61 games 22 minutes he’s 21 only Dyson the huge part here is what can the Pelicans shooting coach Fred vincon do with him 169th in minus one 171st on Yahoo that’s 22 minutes let’s 50% that there’s 50% his numbers get into 33 minutes to starter 10 points 13 six rebounds four and a half assists two steals 6 blocks pretty good the scoring is very low but he flashed a lot more the reason they need his shooting to come up because he needs to replace CJ McCullum he needs to be the starting point guard but given that he can’t shoot that’s a problem 31% from three 55 on his twos and 64 from the line at 44 overall from the field I do believe that he can turn into a 36% three-point shooter mainly because of where he is but also the g-league ignite pathway in the NBA bumps it percentages the two comps for him are massively impactful players year two of the wave pool DeAnthony Melton and rookie year Lonzo ball that’s the type of player low usage offensive guy who turned and worked into becoming very good three-point Shooters who are Elite Defenders Elite defensive event creators and very strong passers and Dyson can do those things I think I’m very excited by the way for those of you in Dynasty leagues and drafts for his brother Dash little bit smaller more of a scorer though he’s like 16 I think now so about 2 3 years away from coming into the draft 77th percen all and crafted uh 68th per on on EPM for Dyson Daniels but what did stand out to me also was his passer rating 88th percentile I think he can handle that part of the game it’s the defensive part where he’s set as well he needs to be able to shoot that’s the key thing now year three for Dyson Daniels maybe a little bit of a dynasty by low player because if he can be a 30 minute a night guy that’s Melton you love it that’s a top 100 player easy and I’ve got a level of confidence in him I was very impressed with some of the steps forward not all the way there but this is the make or break year year three coming up and much like with Trey Murphy what hole does he F giggity last player Jordan Hawkins remember the start of the year when this team had a lot of guys out and there were people talking about how Jordan Hawkins was a top five redraft player make he’s going to be Rookie of the Year blah blah blah played 22 games no s didn’t play 67 games 17 minutes he’s 22 it’s worth remembering with guys like this with anyone from this Draft when you see shooting numbers from college or players coming in that doesn’t really mean anything it means a little bit but so much debate is Grady dick the best shooter Jordan Hawkins the best shooter well did they do anything as rookies not really shot 37% on threes cool but 41% on his twos 38% overall from the field he finished 372nd in minus one he averaged eight points with two rebounds and an assist and3 steals he only played 17 minutes let’s double those numbers 16 points in 34 minutes great 3.2 triples great but the question is what else do you do and the fact that I ask that question about Jordan Hawkins and then his number one comparison was year three of Lonnie Walker who is the epitome of what else do you do should raise some massive fantasy red flags 16 points with three threes if we extrapolate this to 34 minutes is awesome but four rebounds two assists 6 steals is not didn’t get to the line that much I think he’s a much better shooter than this that 41% on twos like he could easily hit 49 48 next season without any question but again where’s the role does he play over CJ or herb or Trey or Dyson or Jose don’t know I expect a big step forward but I also think that our expectations for him this year but also moving forward in his career should be relatively low and if you get anything more out of him outside of a low volume three-point specialist who can be a lead at that not even as good as what JJ reick was cuz R could do some other stuff I think you should be happy with it Lonnie Walker year three was his best comp and then Jody Meeks rookie here his Advance stuff was pretty yuck 23rd per all EPM 15th on crafted and his crafted defensive was seventh he just really struggled cuz he’s skinny he’s small he’s going to get cooked when I saw him summer league I think was the first game that I saw was watching the Pelicans and I was in the um uh Cox Pavilion the smaller one was sitting right at the front me and Dan Titus watching that game and I went and he was in I go bro look how small he is what the hell is this he’s tiny Dyson Daniels that they looked like a center next to him and yeah Hawkins has some moments his ability to get open and shoot on movement is great like firing those shots off his great I think he’s going to be able to do that but he is Tiny he is so small slight short he’s I think that in to be I think he’s too small to be a strong impactful starter personally he sort of did some of the things I thought he could do hit some threes take movement shot that’s great he’ll get hot and people will love it but the other stuff’s a real work in progress and the other thing I’ll mention is that there are I am not someone who has affiliation to college basketball I didn’t grow up watching Final fours I don’t really watch college basketball now until the end of the season but there were so many people NBA analysts fantasy analysts that hyped Jordan Hawkins up when he got into that starting role or that when CJ went down early and they talked about him like he was the second coming how could they possibly take him out of the starting lineup he’s unbelievable he’s going to be a future star and my push back is always yeah no he’s not that good and everyone’s out so I think he will drop back now I got CJ wrong obviously but I got this one right and by part of that where I want to talk about is that he played for this historic team Yukon people have this Affinity to college guys they see them dominate at the college level and they see him in those big moments in the final four and they love that so he does it one or two games in the NBA and it’s all that it’s all we’re ready to go because we they love it there’s that college Nostalgia bias I think with players I think you’ll see Donan cling this season great program huge exposure big games big moments not sure it makes I’m not sure it works in the NBA so just always be cautious hearing the information hearing those overreactions that happen early and always always whether it’s me telling you stuff or somebody else look into the context of it cuz that Hawkins one you would have figured it out that’s it it’s the Pelicans not going to talk Jose Alvarado or EJ Liddell Daren sebron Cody zala don’t think we need to go into those players what you do need to go into though is is hitting this YouTube subscribe button and following and sharing and all of that stuff guys we are done here thank you so much for listening everyone see you [Music]

In this episode, Josh Lloyd delves into the New Orleans Pelicans’ 2023-24 season and what the future holds for Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram. From key performances to potential roster changes, get the complete analysis!

Topics Covered:
🦁 New Orleans Pelicans Season Recap
🔍 Zion Williamson’s Impact and Future
📊 Brandon Ingram’s Performance Analysis
🔄 Potential Offseason Moves

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