Buddy Hield has found his rhythm

Buddy Hield remembers looking around Chesapeake Energy Arena in Oklahoma City and telling himself: breath in the Oklahoma air. Activate the sense memory of all those made shots in the same state, playing for Lon Kruger in Norman, the offensive outburst that catapulted Hield into the lottery, the built up expectations for him as the perimeter complement to Anthony Davis with the New Orleans Pelicans.

“I was all messed up mentally, trying to get past adversity,” Hield said. “It’s not normal for me to miss so many shots, shots I normally make. But I remember talking with [Pelicans] Coach [Alvin Gentry], with [Anthony Davis], they would tell me: you’re the sixth pick for a reason, they expect you to be good. And the way I was playing, I thought I might end up on the bench all year.”

Hield had reason to suspect this. In the two games prior to his December 4 matchup in Oklahoma City, Hield played 1:28 against the Lakers, 3:09 against the Clippers. He’d been dropped from the rotation thanks to a shooting slump that saw Hield making just 36.2 percent of his shots, including 23.7 percent on 3-pointers. He’d been drafted largely on the premise of his senior season with the Sooners, where he’d connected on more than 45 percent of his shots from distance, and was viewed by Pelicans general manager Dell Demps and Gentry as someone who could help Davis and the Pelicans win right away.

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That slow start led many critics to prematurely label Hield a bust, but it left the Pelicans with a decision to make: play for today, and a very attainable spot in the Western Conference playoffs? Or give Hield a chance to develop during his rookie season.

So Gentry decided that, results be damned, it was vital for the Pelicans that Hield keep playing, and playing often.

“I had talked to him about, ‘Hey, I’m going to try and get you minutes, because that’s the only way for you to learn, to be out on the floor,” Gentry said. “And then the game he had in Oklahoma City helped, obviously.”

Hield checked in late in the second quarter, and his first shot didn’t go well—an air ball from 25 feet out. But Gentry sent him back out there late in the third quarter, the Pelicans trailing the Thunder 78-63, and Hield immediately drained a 3-pointer. He stayed on the court for the rest of the game, hitting six of his 12 shots, including four-for-seven of his 3-pointers, his final 3 of the game cutting the deficit to 94-90, though the Thunder held on.

The Pelicans lost but a few things happened that night. Buddy Hield remembered what it felt like to shoot like Buddy Hield. Alvin Gentry decided to reward Hield with a spot in the starting lineup, a spot he hasn’t relinquished since. And the Pelicans have started winning. The irony is their decision to play for tomorrow has yielded the benefits they were hoping for today.

“I feel like Coach always had my back, said I was going to figure it out,” Hield said. “And once he saw a couple of games with progression, he kept me at it, and now you start to see where you’re going.”

The loss in Oklahoma dropped the Pelicans to 7-14. They haven’t been world beaters since, just 9-10, but they’ve been noticeably better. Their defensive rating, once near the bottom of the league, is up to seventh. And with each passing game, Hield looks more capable of lifting their offense to where it needs to go.

Including that night in Oklahoma, Hield is shooting 41.4 percent over his last 20 games, including 48.0 percent on 3-pointers, taking five per game. Interestingly, the Pelicans aren’t looking at Hield as a potential combo guard—Gentry has said himself that they didn’t draft him to be a playmaker. Instead, their model for him can be found out west.

“One thing I tell him is, after all the Clipper games, go to our video guys and get all the minutes of J.J. Redick,” Gentry said. “You’ve got to start looking: J.J. Redick was the same type of player, shooting the ball off screens. I think it’s important for him to look at see to try and figure it out, because he’s a hard worker. And the maturation process is taking its course. And he’s done quite well after struggling to avoid making the same mistakes.”

Many of those mistakes came out of the pick-and-roll game, and one measure of the gap between Redick and Hield is that while Hield is just over 40 percent from 2-point range, Redick is up near 49 percent. It is an encouraging sign that during this starting streak, Hield has been making 3-pointers at a Redick rate, because he’s doing so without the extra space defenders need to provide Redick, who can sometimes attack the basket, sometimes pull up from mid-range.

“You’ve got to be able to do that as a two-guard,” Gentry said. “Learn to run some pick-and-rolls. And we’ve started to put him in those situations. I think that’s the next natural step. The same thing as with J.J. Redick. They’ll run some pick-and-rolls, and he’ll need to learn to facilitate out of that.”

And that recognition is starting to come in the form of finding his teammates as well. Redick sports an assist percentage right around six percent. Hield is in double figures, and since joining the starting lineup, is at 10.6 percent, the vast majority of those coming out of pick-and-roll sets.

That’s important for the Pelicans, because however well-intended it is to look for Hield to be Redick for them this season—a no-longer-improbable goal—J.J. Redick is not the second star on the Clippers, or even the third. And ultimately, given this roster, that’s what New Orleans needs Hield to be. That’s what sixth overall picks are expected to be.

In a draft class where only eight players are averaging more than ten minutes per game, however, Hield is closer than most of his peers. He just won the Western Conference Rookie of the Month Award in December, and there’s little reason to suspect it will be his last.

And the Pelicans are just one and a half games out of the eight spot in the West. Their long-term need for Hield has dovetailed with their reliance on Hield right now.

It just took a little longer, a familiar story for a player who wasn’t expected to even make it to the NBA until his junior season.

“I thought about my college success, how far it was from where I started to where I finished,” Hield said. “But I didn’t want to lean on that, either. I just wanted to figure it out. I talked to Coach [Lon] Kruger, he reminded me, this is how it always works with you.”