Julius Randle will be nice next to Anthony Davis

Julius Randle should fit nicely with Anthony  Davis on the New Orleans Pelicans.

The New Orleans Pelicans have, for a long time, preferred playing Anthony Davis next to a big, bruising center for most of his minutes. Davis has, per Basketball-Reference’s play-by-play stats, logged around half of his regular season at the four, and the other half at the five.

That was a lot of that logic in the Pelicans trading for DeMarcus Cousins during the 2017 All-Star Game. Cousins is one of the bigger, bulkier big men in the NBA, and he’s got no trouble doing some dirty work down low from time to time.

Cousins is gone to the Golden State Warriors now after he tore his Achilles last season. In Boogie’s absence, the Pelicans found some real success running AD at the five with Nikola Mirotic at the four, but New Orleans still wanted a big man next to him. Enter Julius Randle.

Randle is certainly bulky, as he measures 6-foot-9 and weighs 250 pounds. His back-to-the-basket game is good, and he’s sneakily good at driving to the rim without completely losing control as he goes downhill. A driving big man is often a cause for a defense to send help, but that’s not so simple now. Helping off of Anthony Davis is pretty much never a good idea, as Davis doesn’t need a lot of room to convert an open look into a bucket. He’s an effective shooter from mid-range, and he should get some good looks there as Randle bulldozes past him.

Spacing will be as tight as it always is in New Orleans, but Randle’s passing ability should mitigate that some. The former Lakers big man was in the 90th percentile of assist rate per Cleaning the Glass, meaning just a handful of bigs passed to buckets as often as Randle did.

One of the few who did was Cousins, who ranked in the 97th percentile of big men passers according to assist percentage. Boogie’s passing ability helped he and Davis fit together fairly well during his time in New Orleans — lineups featuring those two were plus 4.2 points per 100 possessions last season.

Now, instead of kicking over to Brandon Ingram and Lonzo Ball, Randle will be finding Davis and Jrue Holiday with his passes. He’ll see a cut in his usage rate when he shares the floor with Davis, but Randle will be able to gobble up touches when he plays without AD. There will certainly be times New Orleans looks to run the Mirotic-Davis frontcourt, which means Randle and Davis could be staggered during those games. With true big men becoming rarer and rarer, teams will have a challenge trying to defend one of those two for 48 consecutive minutes.

Playing the three of those players together is probably ill-advised. Alvin Gentry might be forced to if he cannot coax more usefulness out of E’Twaun Moore and Solomon Hill, but in Los Angeles Randle did not fare well next to other bigs.

Lineups in LA featuring Randle, Brook Lopez, and Kyle Kuzma were disastrous for Luke Walton, and got outscored by nearly nine points per 100 possessions across 375 minutes. Even with Brandon Ingram in there instead of Lopez, the Lakers gave up roughly nine points per 100 possessions.

Randle’s best three-man groups often came with two guards. He, Josh Hart, and Jordan Clarkson found success, as did Randle, Ball, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. No Lakers lineups really dominated the competition, but those groups did have a positive point differential.

Davis played around 36 minutes per game last season, while Randle played around 26. If Randle gets bumped up to the mid-30s as well, he and Davis could share the floor for 24 minutes per game and alternate covering the center spot in the other 24.

They could also play Randle a little less and leave some more Davis-only minutes to get Mirotic involved in lineups where he can play the four more often. He never got to share the floor with Cousins and Davis last season, but Mirotic’s size and speed mean he really isn’t suited to play as a three.

The Philadelphia 76ers get away with playing groups featuring Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons and Dario Saric, but that works because Simmons happens to be a 6-foot-10 point guard. None of Davis, Randle, or Mirotic can say the same. The Pelicans also don’t have the auxiliary shooters the Sixers did.

The fit is not perfect, but Randle’s passing and pure power should make for a nice compliment with Anthony Davis. Those two should be able to play together and apart well, leaving space for Mirotic to do his thing. Now, if the Pelicans can finally find some better wings, they could really be in business.