The Secret Weapon Behind Anthony Davis and the Pelicans’ Gradual Improvement

Derick E. Hingle / USA TODAY Sports

A lot has been made of the New Orleans Pelicans. They have, in Anthony Davis, one of the three or four most talented basketball players in the universe as their franchise centerpiece, but drafting Davis with the No. 1 overall pick in 2012 was the easy part. Building an infrastructure to work around him has proven much more difficult.

It’s not a tragedy that the Pelicans are 8-8 as of this writing, treading water in an extremely competitive Western Conference. Given that the franchise has been in rebuilding mode since the Chris Paul trade in 2011 and has finished dead last in the Southwest Division in four of the last five years, merely sneaking into playoff contention is an achievement in New Orleans. Nevertheless, questions persist about the team’s direction. Perhaps they’re not unwarranted.

LeBron James won 50 games in his third NBA season. Kevin Durant also won 50. Derrick Rose won 62 and coasted to the Eastern Conference finals. That year three is usually the breakout year isn’t just a testament to the individual players’ improvement, though that’s certainly part of it – it’s also that three years is usually enough time to build a system around the star player that makes sense. The Pelicans have, well… only sort of done that.

Intelligent arguments have been made that Dell Demps and the New Orleans front office are largely to blame. They’ve had time to make the right moves to build around Davis, and they’ve done so poorly. There’s truth to that. But it’s not easy to do anything about that problem in early December – and rather than hang their heads and sulk, the Pelicans can instead find ways to maximize the talent they have right now.

It starts with getting the most out of Davis himself, and to do that, the Pels first need to understand what makes their young superstar so transcendent. While his incredible fantasy numbers and the fact he singlehandedly makes League Pass worth $200 are noteworthy, his real value lies in a hidden stat that doesn’t show up in many headlines.

This is about turnovers.

Statistically, here’s the biggest reason for the Pelicans’ significant improvement from last season to now: They finished 13th in the NBA in offense last year, averaging 107.2 points per 100 possessions, on the strength of an impressively low turnover rate – just 12.9 percent of possessions, seventh-best in the league. This year, their offense is seventh-best at 109.3 points per 100 plays, and they’re the league’s No. 1 in fewest turnovers, squandering just 10.5 percent of their possessions.

That difference matters. Fewer turnovers means more opportunities to score, and that means that even if you aren’t the most efficient team shooting the ball (which the Pelicans aren’t), the points will still pile up. In theory, the wins should follow.

The Pelicans have crafted such a low-turnover offense because, in simple terms, they run their offense through solid bigs. While Tyreke Evans and Jrue Holiday are perimeter guys who love having the ball in their hands and (especially in Tyreke’s case) aren’t the greatest at controlling it, the Pelicans get by because Davis and the Pelicans’ second best offensive player, Ryan Anderson, are able to assert their authority on the game.

Here’s a visual aid. By the end of Saturday’s games, there were 38 players in the NBA who met two criteria – at least 250 minutes played and a usage rate of 25 percent or higher. The following is a chart of those 38 players, with usage on the X axis and turnover rate on the Y:

You’ll notice that the two names in the bottom left are the Pelicans’ bigs, Davis and Anderson. They handle the ball just as much as superstar bigs like Marc Gasol and Dwight Howard do, only with far fewer mistakes. This is a significant edge, and it’s why the Pelicans are able to keep their offense afloat. They make 38.5 field goals per game, an above-average figure, despite being below the league mean in both pace (92.6 possessions per game) and field goal percentage (44.9 percent). It’s all about generating more opportunities.

Opportunities are important for all of these young Pelicans, especially Davis. As Davis adjusts to the NBA game and continues on his arc toward basketball world domination, he’s going to branch out and try new things. New ways to score; new places on the floor to find his shot. Predictably, as Davis is human and he’s still only 21, the Pelicans’ rising star is not perfect yet:

Davis is tremendous around the rim and has already been effectively mixing in some longer jumpers, but there are certain mid-range spots on the floor where Davis struggles (and, notably, a more seasoned big man like Tim Duncan or Chris Bosh doesn’t). The next step for Davis is to widen his repertoire and add these shots to his game. The only way to do this is through a lot of trial and error – but luckily for Davis, his propensity to control the basketball buys him a lot more “trial.”

Turnovers are the lesser-told story of the Pelicans’ gradual rise to Western Conference relatives. Unlike ridiculous dunks and blocked shots that make for easy Vine fodder, ball control is difficult to encapsulate – how do you prove a lack of turnovers via the eye test? You can’t show a video of the absence of something.

But while the Pelicans’ lack of TOs isn’t something that’s readily apparent, it is absolutely relevant. A relevant study here is this one by Evan Zamir, who studied the role that each of Dean Oliver’s “four factors” – field goal percentage, turnover rate, offensive rebound rate and free throw rate – play in building a successful NBA offense. Revealingly, he found that while field goal percentage is king (obviously, making shots is important), turnover rate was a strong second place. Approximately 20 percent of a team’s offensive rating can be explained by turnovers – in other words, 10 percent of overall team success.

No doubt, the Pelicans are improving. They won just 34 games last season and finished 12th in the West; this year, they’re fighting for a playoff spot. That’s progress. But if there were one piece of advice that could help them speed up their development, it’s likely this – go to the bigs more. Pelicans observers have noted that despite his rapid improvement, Davis still sees shockingly few touches in the Pelicans’ offense. Part of that is because of their schemes, and it’s also because some of his teammates, especially Evans and Holiday, frequently fail to find Davis when he has opportunities to make plays. Given what we know about Davis’ effect on the team’s offense, this must change.

New Orleans has a once-in-eons talent in Anthony Davis, but the next step is to make the most of him. That’s still a work in progress.