Give The New Orleans Pelicans A Center And Watch Them Soar

Despite finishing the regular season six games back of the Los Angeles Clippers for the eighth seed in the Western Conference, and a hefty ten behind the seventh-placed Minnesota Timberwolves, the new postseason format meant there was still something for the New Orleans Pelicans to play for in the short term. And perhaps that informed their personnel decisions throughout the year.

At the 2022 NBA trade deadline, the Pelicans were buyers. They bought quality, and they bought veteran quality at that. In their sole deal – one of the deadline’s biggest – they moved off the misfiring youth of Nickeil Alexander-Walker and the indeterminable “potential” of three future draft picks in order to get back ready-made veteran contributors C.J. McCollum and Larry Nance from the Portland Trail Blazers.

McCollum, 30, and Nance, 29, are at the height of their powers, or at least close enough to it. They are good, too. McCollum had for the best part of a decade been flexing an absolute bag of scoring talent with the Portland Trail Blazers, a 20 point-per-game sidekick who could both get a bucket of his own or run to the open spot as others went to work, while Nance’s quirky and range game offers flexibility across the forward spots on both ends of the court. The acquisitions were enough to get the Pelicans into the first round of the playoffs via the play-in tournament, a testament to their mutual ability as floor-raisers on any team. They are good players.

What the two are not, though, are centers. Indeed, outside of Jonas Valanciunas, perhaps no one on the Pelicans roster is.

Certainly, Valanciunas is a good one. A small-ball punisher in the small ball era, and potentially a game-changing X factor in his own right, there is no centre hole on a depth chart when he is on it.

However, Valanciunas is not optimal for the Pelicans as constructed, where “as constructed” is taken to mean “alongside Zion Williamson”.

Much as Williamson’s continued absences due to injury and less-than-ideal rumours about his commitment to the Pelicans cause means his once-automatic place in the future is now less of a sure thing, he nevertheless is the best hope for the future levelling-up of this team. A healthy Zion is an NBA star with superstar potential. And so any acquisitions are to be, or should be, made with him in mind.

Zion, though, is imperfect. An imprecise defender of all types of players in all spots, he also lacks much of an outside stroke at this point, and has not shown the best commitment to the rebounding glass beyond the physical tools he was born with. He unleashes hell in the opponent’s paint like no other, yet he could stand to do a lot more when defending the same areas he feasts on, and the perimeter defence is perhaps further behind still.

In tandem, then, the Pelicans require a paint defender who can also defend in space and clear the glass at a high rate, while also not overly clogging the paint for Zion and adding floor spacing. And the problem with that is, every other team is looking for that kind of player, too.

Nevertheless, while it might be impossible to find the player to tick every box, they should be able to find players who tick at least some. After that, some slight rejigging, plus the return to health of Zion, and they could start moving up quickly.

Valanciunas ticks some of those boxes, to be sure. In addition to being one of the game’s best rebounders and a finisher in the paint, he has also become a decent stretch five in recent seasons, and while seeing him move out to that range a la Brook Lopez would see him get away from the offensive rebounding and deep-catch game he is a master at, it nevertheless adds dimensions to the team.

However, the idea that 2019 first-round pick Jaxson Hayes could be the perfect partner is looking ambitious. Although his extremely rare combination of size and mobility sees him effective in a few ways – as evidenced by his seemingly effortless .680% true shooting percentage, the product of nearly half of all his made shots being dunks – the results on his jump shot, while promising, are too early to be conclusive. Hayes offers a frontcourt transition option, a permanent lob threat and some rangy defense, particularly on switches, yet he is a poor rebounder whose improvements in key areas in his three years to date has been slow.

Perhaps more to the point, if the team is prepared to go for a lob threat and shot-blocker instead of (or in addition to) Jonas Valanciunas, why not dream a little bigger and go for Rudy Gobert?

As discussed elsewhere, Gobert will almost certainly be available this summer, as the Jazz need to rethink a team on the descent. A team looking for an option over the top and a defender in the back line could surely find no better fit than a two-time Defensive Player of the Year around whom the phrase “vertical spacing” was literally devised.

The immediate concern with a Zion/Gobert frontcourt is perimeter defense, not something either does particularly well. Yet in Nance, Hayes (if he stays), Trey Murphy, Brandon Ingram and the excellent defensive rookie Herb Jones in tow in the front court, they can get creative and they can get weird.

This is a league now of defensive flexibility, and when considering all options after adding a true shotblocker at the five spot, the Pelicans will have that. When the time comes to go small, the team can do that, too, using that phalanx of rangy forwards and either Zion or Rudy at the five. And if opposing teams go small instead to try to counter Williamson’s bounce, Gobert in the dunker spot will feast more than Valanciunas ever could.

The benefits to Zion as an individual will therefore come on both ends. Gobert’s weak side lob presence will be of eternal benefit to the McCollum/Williamson two-man game, and his weak side help defense will cure a lot of his ills on that front. Over the course of a long regular season – one in which Zion, considering his injury history, will need managing and rest – the Pelicans will be able to stay competitive while managing work loads appropriately. With Gobert at centre, they make small compromises on timelines, floor spacing and salary flexibility in order to make massive upgrades that will pay dividends in each of the short, medium and long terms.

And if it is not to be Gobert specifically, then, someone. Most of the above will all still apply with any quality bouncy center. And once it happens, watch the Pelicans climb.