Nylon Calculus: A quick look at the Pelicans’ stagnant offense and situational play

As a Pelicans fan, the convention line of thought this offseason went something like this: it’s okay if we lose Ryan Anderson and Eric Gordon. It’s more important for us to bring in intelligent defensive players like Solomon Hill and E’Twaun Moore because with Anthony Davis, there’s no way that we don’t have at least an above average offense.

Of course, reality hasn’t quite followed that same script. While New Orleans has stiffened up to become a quite underrated defense, the offensive side of the ball has taken a turn for the worse. On paper, with a transcendent fulcrum like Davis, a very good point guard in Jrue Holiday, an improving shooter in Buddy Hield, and some other pieces, it’s a little mind-boggling that the Pelicans aren’t able to field at least an average offense. So as Brendon Kleen would ask, what’s the problem outside simply “shoot better?”

In continuing with my research on lineups, I took a quick look at the offensive ratings for all the two-man lineup combinations for the Pelicans (among players who have played at least 10 games), to some interesting observations. In the chart below, red indicates minimum, yellow midpoint, and green maximum.

First things first: don’t be fooled by the patches of green. Relative to the rest of the league, none of these combos are world-beaters, considering not a single pair tops a 110 offensive rating. For some perspective, the league average offensive rating among teams is 108. With that said, let’s start with some of the Pelicans guards.

Jrue Holiday’s ratings are all surprisingly lukewarm, especially his pairing with Anthony Davis, who has worked a little better offensively with Tim Frazier. Whether it’s the fault of surrounding talent or from his time off at the beginning of the season, it seems that Holiday and Davis haven’t yet recaptured the chemistry that they’ve had in years past. Tim Frazier, on the other hand, proved an excellent fill-in for Holiday. The third piece of the guard puzzle is Tyreke Evans, who actually doesn’t pair well with Anthony Davis or Buddy Hield, two of the Pelicans’ current starters. This lends credence to the notion that Evans is ideally suited to be a sixth man creator off the bench, with his minutes staggered against Holiday and Frazier. Seeing as Buddy Hield is still struggling despite marked shooting improvement (turns out there’s more to playing offense in the NBA), it’s clear that the Pelicans would benefit from playing Holiday and Frazier together more often.

Then there is the case of the bounce-back season from Terrence Jones. He has been part of some of the Pelicans’ most productive lineups, however he doesn’t pair well with the two standard centers on the roster, so small ball lineups are ideal for him. E’Twaun Moore and Solomon Hill, despite not being all that strong on the box score, have pretty solid offensive ratings and work well with the team’s most important players — two strong glue guys, although it’s certainly fair to expect them to have become more than simply decent glue guys given the price tags at which they were signed.

While the Pelicans lack top-end offensive talent around Davis (Tyreke Evans is the only other qualifying player with an Offensive Box Plus-Minus rating over 1), Alvin Gentry, a supposed offensive specialist, certainly deserves some of the blame as well for failing to maximize the sum of the parts which he does have. The team regularly tends to stagnate in half court sets, fails to make simple reads, and don’t consistently play with a high collective basketball IQ. There are individual flashes of brilliance but also too many instances where they look like they’re slogging around aimlessly. To examine the issue of “situational play,” I also briefly delved into how teams perform based on the score margin. In the chart below, only margins under 15 points were considered, since at the extremes, lineup and usage patterns are often distorted (i.e. blowouts) and only constitute a small part of overall playing time.

The observations on the chart align with the observations of the Pelicans on film. They have a proclivity to blow leads and are basically the anti-frontrunners, as they are at their worst when the game is close. The Pelicans offensively are actually overall situationally similar to the Grizzlies (although the Grizzlies this year have been incredible in the clutch). Teams like Houston on the other hand are consistently excellent on offense regardless of score situation, with an average offensive rating of 113.8 across all seven categories and a variance of only 4.6 percent. Interestingly enough, Golden State is actually the worst team in the league at scoring when down double digits, no doubt a factor of their still evolving chemistry and shot selection troubles this season.

Another team, like the Pelicans, that has been derided for not playing smart and blowing leads is Minnesota. The Timberwolves however, actually score well regardless of game situation (average of 105.6 offensive rating across all seven categories). The problem for them is the inverse of the Pelicans — a surprisingly leaky defense. Minnesota though can blame the travails of youth. New Orleans has no such excuses. Only a lack of secondary options around their superstar made worse by poor coaching.

All statistics current through 1/13/17. All research courtesy of NBA.com/stats and Basketball Reference.