What can DeAndre Liggins bring to the Pelicans?
By Jeff Siegel
Per a report from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the New Orleans Pelicans have agreed terms on a 10-day contract with DeAndre Liggins, who most recently played for the Milwaukee Bucks before being cut in advance of his contract guaranteeing earlier this week. Liggins featured in 30 games for Milwaukee and was generally one of the worst offensive players in the league this season. He’s almost entirely a spot-up threat offensively, but that threat is so low, DEFCON 5 doesn’t even quite describe it.
Liggins shot just 30 percent from 3 in Milwaukee on comically low usage, which added up to the Bucks being 12.9 points per 100 possessions better when he sat then when he was on the court. He did shoot 39 percent last year in Cleveland, though we’ve seen before how players lose that shooting prowess when they leave LeBron James’ orbit.
More important than his actual three-point percentage is the fact that defenses mostly ignore him, even helping off him one pass away to take away the offense’s stronger players. Watch below how Nikola Mirotic gaps off Liggins at the 3-point line to deter a Khris Middleton drive:
Given that Liggins will probably see a lot of minutes with at least one of Anthony Davis and DeMarcus Cousins in New Orleans, it’s a pretty safe bet that teams will be sending double-teams to those guys using Liggins’ defender to take advantage of his offensive weaknesses.
Where Liggins does bring value is on the defensive end. He’s consistently ranked highly in key defensive metrics and rebounds well enough for his position to not be a liability. The Pelicans are down to 19th in defensive rating after finishing eighth last season and haven’t quite gotten the defense they were expecting out of summer signing Tony Allen. Allen was on the fringes of the rotation to begin the season and has been out for about a month with a fractured fibula. New Orleans will look for Liggins to affect the game in a similar way to Allen — he’ll mostly defend point and combo guards, though he has the length to deal with some of the smaller wings.
Liggins excels at getting through ball screens, making him a strong defender against opponent’s primary creators. He and Jrue Holiday will be a fearsome backcourt combo on that end of the floor, as both are equally capable of defending both guard positions and switching onto larger players when necessary. Liggins has proven himself to be a strong isolation and post defender, as he showed in the Bucks’ mid-December game against the Houston Rockets. Liggins notched his only start of the season in that game and mostly played well against James Harden. In a pair of instances, Harden tried to take on the stout Liggins one-on-one and he held up both times:
Liggins may get another crack at Harden if he signs a second 10-day contract with the Pelicans, as the Rockets will visit New Orleans on Jan. 26. As things stand, the Pelicans are so injury-ridden (they had to get a disabled player exception from the league to sign Liggins) that he’ll have plenty of opportunity to show what his worth.
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Liggins has been all over the NBA and G League in his short career to this point — he’s been rostered by eight different teams since April 2017 — and hasn’t quite found a home yet. Though this is just a 10-day contract, Liggins may be able to parlay his short opportunity into a rest-of-season contract, either with the Pelicans or yet another team enamored with his effort and ability on the defensive end.