The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight: NBA Power Rankings: #15 New Orleans Pelicans

Episode Date: September 6, 2022

Jason Timpf breaks down the New Orleans Pelicans ahead of the 2022-2023 NBA season as Zion Williamson, Brandon Ingram, and C.J. McCollum look to guide New Orleans back to the playoffs. #HerdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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In Tennessee Red Line, dial 1-800-9-9-97889 in Tennessee, visit www.1-800-gambler.net in West Virginia. All right, welcome to Hoops Tonight, presented by Fandul here at The Volume. Happy Monday, everybody. I hope all of you guys had a great weekend and that your weeks are off to a good start. We are back in the studio. It is not finished yet. I promise we're not going in front of this blank wall all season.

I have a bunch of stuff that's going to be there. It's just not there yet. But, hey, at least it's a lot better than those cabinets that you guys all felt like roasting me for last week. So bear with me. We're almost completely done. Feels good to have this setup. I made some permanent changes,

especially off camera that are going to make this a lot easier for me this year. We're continuing with our power rankings today. Now, our power rankings have been doubling as like season previews, so we're doing deep dives into the teams, especially into their personnel changes and what they like to do on both sides of the floor. Last week we got a little derailed by the Donovan-Mitchell trade, because number 15 in my list was Chicago. Obviously, they're not 15 anymore with Cleveland.

call them 15B, call them 16, I don't care. We're moving past them, and the pelicans are going to be taking that 15th spot. So today, number 15, the New Orleans Pelicans. You guys know the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the volumes, YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason LT, so you guys don't miss show announcements. And last but not least, if you miss one of these shows and you can't get back over to

YouTube to finish them, remember you can find them in audio form wherever you get your podcasts under hoops tonight. So to give you guys an idea, for those of you missed it last week, the format we're going with here. We're going to briefly touch on last year, touch on player personnel changes, deep dive on offense, deep dive on defense, what their best case scenario is, what their worst case scenario is, and who their biggest X factor is, the player that has a player concept coach, whatever thing that has the biggest swing capability when it comes to the outcome

of their season. So last season was a down year in terms of health for the Pelicans that really, really hurt them. C.J. McCollum, Zion Williamson, and Brandon Ingram combined to only play in 81 games. So as a result, just in general today, we're going to be spending the vast majority of our attention looking forward rather than looking backwards, just simply because there's just not a lot you can take from a team that's going to be playing completely different players this season. None of it's going to translate as smoothly. but last year with what they had in terms of availability, they were 19th in offense, 18th in defense, obviously bad on both fronts.

But at the end of the season, when they started to get healthy, things started to click, and there were a lot of things for Pelicans fans to get excited about. They finished the season 9 and 6 in their last 15 games. They won both playing games, and then they took a very good son's team with Chris Paul playing at the very peak of his ability, right before he fell apart in the second round, they took that Sun's team to six games in really impressive fashion. I thought the revelation of that playoff run or that end of the season run was Brandon Ingram,

who averaged 29, 6 and 6 on 64% true shooting in the playing games, and then 27, 6 and 6 on 58% shooting in the first round. I did a deep dive on Brandon Ingram during our player rankings. So I'm not going to over, you know, dive back into those things today. So if you're looking for Brandon Ingram analysis and you didn't catch our earlier video, go deeper into our feed. Player rankings in that 11 to 15 video is where we did the deep dive into Brandon Ingram. So they didn't do much this offseason, but that's a good thing. That's to David Griffin's benefit.

Now, I don't agree with everything that David Griffin's done since he got into that position. You know, him beefing with LeBron was weird. he's a little bit egotistical, but I do think he knows the basketball. I do think he's a good GM, and I think that's evidenced in the way this roster has come together, especially with the types of players that he's found on the wing. I really like Trey Murphy. I really like Erb Jones. And those are guys that he found on the margins.

And then you add in a Dyson Daniels, their first round draft pick from this season. Once again, we did a deep dive into Dyson Daniels for our pre-draft stuff, so you can find that deeper in our feed. but they're really interesting and really deep on the wing. Dyson Daniels is kind of like a, you know, he's a defensive-minded wing that can make plays with a pass attacking close-out. So kind of a similar archetype to Dail and Terry when we were talking about Chicago,

except for I think Dyson Daniels has much better physical tools and particularly is more physically developed, good that he was with the G-League. I think that helped him a lot in that regard. But I think that's going to make him more NBA ready right now. But outside of that, not a whole lot, El Zion signed his extension, which is good, obviously. And then their second round draft pick, E.J. Liddell ended up tearing his ACL at Summer League, so he won't factor into this particular season. But good. You're a team that's on the right track.

You've got a great core. You didn't screw that up. So that's good in terms of their off-season approach. Their depth chart as of right now, at the guard position, I see C.J. McCollum, Devante Graham, Garrett Temple, Kira Lewis, Jose Alvaredo on the wing. I'm calling Zion Williamson a wing. I don't even know what you call him at this point. We're going to talk a lot about Zion today. Dyson Daniels, Trey Murphy, and Erb Jones. There are Biggs, Jonas Valachunus, Larry Nance, Jackson Hayes, and Willie Heron-Gomez. That's going to be really interesting core, depending on where Zion fits in their lineup. Someone's going to get squeezed there. I think it might end up being Jackson Hayes. We'll see.

All right, let's talk about the offensive end of the floor. We're going to do a deep dive into what they did last year, as well as what I expect them to do this year now that Zion Williamson is back in the picture. So they were a heavy post-up team. They were sixth in total post-ups this year. Big part of that was Jonas Fallon Chunis. If I asked you guys who you thought the highest volume post-up players in the league were, you'd probably say Nicolioch and Joel M. B.

And you would be right. But guess who's third on that list? it's Jonas Valenciunis. They throw the ball down there to him a lot. He does okay there, but he's not, he scores less than one point per possession on post-ups. So in general, I'd like to see them do a little bit less of that this year. They run a lot of off-ball actions with C.J. McCollum and Brandon Ingram to get them attacking with an advantage. This is very similar to what I was talking about with the Chicago Bulls with Zach Levine and DeMar de Marr de Rosen. Think of it as like an off-ball pick and roll. Essentially, it's the same type of reads. Like if you've come off the screen, and you're open, you shoot it, you're right? But if you don't, and the defender's chasing you, you're trying to work curling around the screen to get downhill into the lane to force the defense to rotate or obviously get all the way to the rim if you can.

This turned into a really interesting chess match with Phoenix because New Orleans is not a good pick and roll team, or at least they weren't during this regular season. They were the third worst pick and roll team in the entire NBA on a per possession basis. So essentially Monty Williams wanted to, to take New Orleans out of their off ball actions and force them to run more heliocentric style with C.J. McCollum and Brandon Ingram attacking

with a live dribble at a pick and roll. So what he did was he straight up top-sided on Brandon Ingram and C.J. McCollum. So he'd have Jay Crowder and McHale Bridges positioned themselves like backside to half court in the way of Brandon and C.J. Where they were trying to come off their screens. Kind of like straight up giving a backdoor cut

if they wanted to, but just trying to disrupt that initial attack in their offense. I thought it was a really smart strategy for Monty Williams, and particularly in the early part of that series, you could see that have an effect on New Orleans and their confidence on the offensive end of the floor. They did get off to a slow start, particularly in game one. The interesting dynamic there, though, was even though in the regular season, the Pelicans average 0.8 points per pick and roll possession, which again was third worst in the entire league, they bumped that up to one point per possession, which is solid against the sun. A huge part of that was Jose Alvaredo, played extremely well.

Devante Graham played extremely well coming off the bench. And C.J. McCollum is one of the better pick and roll players in the league as well. I don't want to talk about it too much further again, because like I said, I did a deep dive into this for the player rankings. But Brandon Ingram, passing out of high pick and roll, was amazing to watch in this particular playoff run. He already is seeing the floor and passing. at a higher level than a lot of his peers at that position around the league. He's huge so he can see the floor well. He's got these long arms so he can make these like slingshot,

like catapult passes across the court to the weak side corner. Just really high level stuff from him. It was a huge part of why I had him as high in my player rankings as I did. What was the interesting chess match of that series was Phoenix turning New Orleans into a pick and roll team, even though they didn't want to be, and then succeeding anyway, because they had four ball handlers who all did well in pick and roll in that series. C.J. McCollum was the eighth best pick and roll player in the league last year to run at least 300 pick and rolls in the regular season. Obviously, he did well in that playoff series as well.

Didn't shoot the ball as well as he'd like, but he's a guy that's going to generate quality offense there. The interesting thing, I wanted to talk a little bit about C.J. C.J. is a really interesting player because he's not a fantastic athlete at the shooting guard position, but he does a really, really good job of protecting the basketball with a live dribble. And this is something that I talk about a lot with young players. How many times either as a young player have you seen this or have you done it yourself where you're dribbling in front of somebody and you try to do a crossover dribble in front of your body and the defender just kind of reaches their hands out and pokes it away from you.

And you can't figure out how they sat on it. You can't figure out how they got to it, but they got to it. Now they're running the other way for a layup. It happens a lot. And with the kids that I coach, I always tell them the same thing. Like when you will have distance between you and the defender in front of you, you can do things like crossover dribbles. But specifically when you're like up close and personal with a defensive player who has his hand out and is trying to disrupt your dribble, you need to protect the basketball. And the easiest way to do that is to dribble between your legs.

You have to take long lunging steps and protect the basketball by dribbling between your legs. See Jim McColl, the vast majority of his dribble combinations are done between his legs to protect the basketball. The other thing that he does really well is called snaking the pick and roll. Essentially, imagine it like this. If a guard is chasing you over the top of the screen, one of the easiest ways to make it harder for him to actually get over the screen is to make him navigate around the screen for longer. So if you come around the screen to the right and then you immediately snake back to the left side of the floor,

that guard has a harder time navigating. It's like him trying to go around a roundabout, as you can imagine. C.J. McCollum snakes to pick and roll extremely well. He's also a great pull-up jump shooter. He took 11 pull-up jump shots per game in this regular season and made them at a 51% effective field goal percentage. That's field goal percentage weighted for three-point shots. He also averaged five assists per game.

So just having a couple of really high-end pick-and-roll ball handlers and Brandon Ingram and C.J. McCollum made that interesting. And then with Jose Alvaredo and Devante Graham playing well off the bench, they were able to hang with a really, really good team in Phoenix. Valenciunus was the, what I thought was the most interesting kind of conundrum that the pelicans found themselves in in that Phoenix series. So to give you an idea, in 175 minutes with him on the floor against Phoenix, they were minus 15. In 130, 113 minutes with him off, they were plus six. And specifically on the defensive end of the floor, they were 11.7 points better with him off the floor.

and it's the classic Biggs versus perimeter players debate that I'm always having with you guys on the show. Valenciunis brings a ton of things to the table as a dominant big man. He is an outstanding offensive rebounder in the NBA. He's pretty solid in the short roll. So when he catches the ball in pick and roll in the middle of the floor, he's good at making reads to his teammates, lob passes to someone cutting back door, hitting shooters in the corner. He's got like a really kind of janky-looking kind of like push-shot or floater in the lane that he makes quite a bit.

and then obviously high volume post-up guy that succeeds. He average 0.98 points per possession and post-ups. So he does all these things that help you, right? Obviously, if he's standing right underneath the basket and somebody tries to score over him, he can bother them with the length. But because he's a slow-footed big, he hurts you in all these other areas of the game. He got absolutely destroyed in pick and roll by the Phoenix Suns. That's a huge part of why their defense was so bad with him on the floor.

He's just too slow to be put in. positions as a defender where he either needs to cover ground, meaning he's covering a perimeter player in open space or in pick and roll where he's got to split the difference between multiple players, being up on Chris Paul to dissuade the pull-up while also getting back to dissuade the lob with D'Andre. He's just not really capable of doing that an extremely high level. So in general, even though he did all these good things, like once again, he destroyed Phoenix on the offensive glass, he scored the basketball around the rim. He did a lot of good things, but in the aggregate, when you factored in the things that he was hurting the team in as a defensive player in particular,

and also with spacing, I didn't think it was actually a good arrangement, and they didn't do well with him on the floor against Phoenix. I think he's good to have on the roster. He can eat innings in the regular season, but in the playoffs moving forward, I'd like to see them favor Larry Nance at that five spot because of what he can do on the perimeter with his skis. He could shoot the ball and attack closeouts, things like that. And then on defense, he's a lot more mobile. You can use him in a drop coverage. He's not going to be a great drop coverage big, but he can do that.

But in general, he can do the more versatile defensive stuff like switching and pick and roll or guarding in transition when he has to pick up a different man in transition. I just like Larry Nance a little bit better in that spot, and I don't think it was a coincidence that they played better with Larry Nance on the floor in this particular playoff run. But when we're projecting forward for this Pelicans team, we have to factor in Zion Williamson. This is the number one overall draft pick from a few years back.

So he's obviously going to be some type of focal point in the offense. And it's a different, everything is different than the last time he played. Not only was C.J. McCollum not there, but the team is more serious. This is a Pelicans team that probably is talking about how they have a chance to win the West. Now, do I think they have a chance to win the West? No, we'll get further into that. But the reality is, is this is a team with real ambitions now, and this is a team that has more competent ball handling around him.

So it's going to be a different role than it was last time. Last time he played, he was in a major on ball role. They had him trying to run point guard a lot. He was running a lot of dribble handoffs with JJ Reddick. It was a whole thing, right? It's going to be a lot different this time around in this particular system. So I thought the best way to do that or to try to project that, is to take a look at what Zion's skill set is and how it fits with this particular group.

Let's think like coaches for a minute, right? So what is Zion's specific skill set? For a forward, he handles the ball really well and he can pass the ball really well. So that's a good point, a good starting point. As an athlete, he's a mismatch against basically any type of defender. It kind of reminds me a little bit of Janus in that regard where it's like he's way too quick for the big players and way too big for the quick players, and that goes for the big, strong wings. Like Jason Tatum, who I think is one of the best perimeter defenders in basketball are Andrew Wiggins,

you know, that archetype of defensive wing is not going to be able to handle the low center of gravity and strength that Zion Williamson has. That's the type of mismatch problem that he presents to everybody. He is, without a doubt, not even close, the best rim finisher in basketball, even better than Janice. Last year, or last time he played in 2021, him and Janus both played 61 games. Zion led the entire NBA and restricted area field goal makes with 548, which was 113 more than Janus. To give you some perspective, this year I was talking about how Zion averaged, or excuse me,

Janus averaged like 6.7 restricted area makes per game, and LeBron was right there because he was averaging 6.6. In that 2021 campaign, Zion average nine restricted area makes per game. This guy is just physically impossible to keep away from the rim. That's the type of mismatch problem that he is. So we have to think about how he fits alongside these Pelicans' lineups. Now, the first problem is you can't play him at the five. We discovered in that 2021 campaign that defensively he's not capable of doing

what a backside rim protector can do or a typical good, backline defender can do, right? So they're going to have to play him alongside some sort of big man. The temptation is going to be to play him alongside Jonas Valchunis a lot. I expect him to start alongside Jonas Valenctunus. But like we talked about earlier, I'm not a huge fan of that specific fit because of the negatives that come with Jonas. So my hope is that in the long run that they pair him a lot with Larry Nance as that backside defender gives him a ton of athleticism in the front court that could be really, really interesting. So when we think about what the pelicans have around Zion this time around, right?

We got C. Jim McCollum, who's an outstanding shooter and ball handler. Brandon Ingram was an outstanding ball handler and probably will shoot the ball well from the perimeter this year. Irm Jones, who didn't shoot the ball overly well in this last regular season, we'll get to him a little bit more in a minute. But they typically will have some kind of shooting threat in that three spot. And then somebody as a big, let's call it Larry Nance for the sake of just talking this through in terms of offensive So from there, I still like the idea of some of the dribble handoff stuff that they were doing with him and JJ Reddick. Again, that doesn't have to be necessarily something that's looking for Zion. You could use him pretty similar to the way that the Nuggets used Nikolioch, and they use his threat to get openings for his guards.

If you could imagine Zion Williamson initiating actions for Brandon Ingram and C.J. McCollum coming off of their curls, there's wide curls, but with a dribble handoff with Zion. Williamson, that could add a whole other dynamic to how difficult that is to defend and really open things up for them on the offensive end of the floor. So I still like dribble handoff stuff. I really like the idea of him as a short roller with Brandon Ingram and C. Jim McCollum. Again, short roll is when you don't roll hard to the rim, but you rather kind of soft roll to the middle of the floor. You catch a pocket pass there and you either continue to go to the rim or you make reeds to your teammates or you can shoot floaters or quick little pull-up jump shots and things like that. The other thing I'm really excited for is the spaced isos. This is a team that should, in theory, especially with specific lineups,

especially with Larry Nance on the floor, have outstanding spacing. And Zion's just going to catch really favorable matchups every single game, spacing the floor for him and allowing him to rip through to his left and go to the rim. That's the way that I see him being used. Not as point Zion like they did the last time he played, but a little bit of on-ball stuff as a dribble handoff guy and then a whole lot of stuff as a screener and what he could do to open things up for himself as a screener, and then of course, attacking matchups with spaced out ISOs. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games.

Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win.

A win is a win. I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment, and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music.

The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast, it's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So, if you've ever supported me, or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need. to be. Listen to the Clifford show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tap Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do with Little Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a here.

unpack what went down and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill, waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack on day, but just so y'all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack, so I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now, so.

Thank you for finishing that sentence. Yes. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really? Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Zooming out a couple, before we move to the defensive end of the floor, I wanted to touch on just a couple of their role players. Not all of them, just the ones that I find particularly interesting today. I really like Herb Jones. Obviously, he's an outstanding defensive player.

We're going to get more to Erb Jones on the defensive end of the floor in a minute. But right now, the Pelicans need him to take a little bit of a leap offensively. He did shoot 42% against Phoenix, but it was really low volume. He, in general, is a really low volume shooter and shoots about 33%. Obviously, he's young. Right now, his release is too slow, so he's too hesitant when he gets some shot. Like, he just, he doesn't have a quick enough trigger to make teams pay for guarding, for not guarding him, and he's not consistent enough as a shooter to make teams pay

for not guarding him. So that's the thing they're going to have to figure out. Jose Alvaredo is excellent pushing the pace for them. You can feel that energy change every time he, checks into the game. He just likes to get going on a full run. Again, the advantage of attacking that way is it keeps the defense from getting set and leads to more health or scalter stuff. A lot of times you can catch favorable matchups that way because transition defense usually dictates that you grab the person nearest to you. It's an easy

way to get favorable matchups. He's also really solid in pick and roll and he had a really good pick and roll playoff series against the Phoenix Suns. I really like Trey Murphy. He kind of fell out of the rotation against Phoenix probably because Monty Williams doesn't try. trust him enough on the defensive end of the floor. But he does have the physical tools to be a good defensive player, so I'm hoping that he gets a bigger role this season. The reason why I like him is he's a gunner. He averaged about eight three-point attempts per 36 minutes this year.

He's everything that Erb Jones is not as a spot-up guy. Hunts three-point shots, has a quick release, you know, isn't bothered by mild contests, offers real floor spacing. You can even push that shot out to almost like 27, 28 feet, comfortably. I really, really like what he could potentially be for them as a 3-and-D guy. There's some potentially exciting stuff there, too. You can start to imagine lineups with Brandon Ingram, Erb Jones, and Trey Murphy all on the floor together and the type of

length and versatility they could have on the defensive end of the floor if he takes a leap defensively. Jackson Hayes is the interesting one. He's an outstanding athlete. He's a little bit out of control when you watch him play a little bit of a bull in the china shop. But I think his rotation spot is going to be the one that ends up getting squeezed with Zion So let's move to the defensive end of the floor. So they were a bad defensive team last year. They ranked 18th, but health was a big factor in that. They did have some interesting lineup data, though, that I think projects for what they

could have in some specific scenarios on the defensive end of the floor. Their scheme is pretty consistent with what you see around the rest of the league. They run drop coverages with Jonas Valanchunis, chase shooters over the top of screens, and try to funnel things to Jonas in the paint. They do a little bit of dropping with Nance as well, but he's a little bit of, bit more switchable. And then typically one through four, they switch just about everything that they can, which is to David Griffin's credit. He came up with a roster with the right type of personnel to be able to do that type of switching. They were pretty damn good at defending the paint.

They were pretty damn good in transition, and they were pretty damn good securing defensive rebounds. Those three areas in particular all point towards Willie Green, especially when you factor in that Jonas Fallon Chunis is not exactly the best rim protector in the NBA and that they don't necessarily have the best defensive personnel. It means they have a great help scheme that clogs the paint and makes it so that as a team they defend the painted area. Obviously, transition defense is big on attention to detail too, that's sprinting back and communicating and getting matched up. And then defensive rebounding, boxing out on every possession and having guys crash from the perimeter. That's all coaching. That's all attention to detail. And, you know,

there's a lot of attention in this particular team devoted towards the players for good reason, right? Like Brandon Ingram's a great player. C. Jim McCollum's a great player. Zion Williamson. Irv Jones has been the revelation this year, right? But Willie Green deserves a ton of credit for what he's done with this group. And the way that he's got them bought in and playing hard every single night

and the defensive identity that he's built with this group, he deserves a lot of credit for that. They do err on the side of leaving shooters to help in the paint, though, and that was the weakness in their defense. They did allow the sixth-most-made threes and the fifth-highest percentage in terms of their opponent's three-point percentage. Irb Jones was the biggest bright spot on the defensive end of the floor last year. His role grew as the season progressed.

By the end of the season, he was a huge minutes guy for them. He's a super disruptive perimeter defender, kind of Kauai-esque in the ability that he has, the natural knack he has to take the basketball away from ball handlers, particularly with a live dribble. He had 130 steals last year, which was third in the entire NBA, which is insane for a young defensive wing like that.

In terms of technique, I think it's really fascinating because a lot of young players reach in on defense. That's to be expected. It's just kind of a bad basketball habit that a lot of young players have. And when I say reaching in, I mean lunging out of position. Like they will lunge forward to get the basketball and reach and in the process throw their entire body out of balance. And so, yeah, you might get the basketball every once in a while.

You might force a turnover, you run in the other way. But the rest of the time, if it's a competent ball handler you're guarding, they're just going to go right around you because now your body's out of position. And what Erb Jones does so well and it kind of reminds me of Kauai is he can be disruptive with his hands without getting his body out of whack. So he's not lunging. He's just putting his hands in places where the ball usually is while staying square with you and sliding with you. Obviously it helps to have obscenely long arms to do that, but that in terms of technique is the way that Earb Jones can be disruptive without giving ground as a defensive player. When Brandon Ingram and Herb Jones shared the floor

together last year, they had 106.8 defensive rating, which is excellent. For perspective, Boston led the league last year as a team with the 106.2. Now, when you start messing with line-up data and that gets a little tricky, but that's just one qualifier. Just Brandon Ingram and Irb Jones together, they defended pretty damn well. And that's something that you can take as a huge positive looking forward. Brandon Ingram in general is going to be the main kind of like fulcrum for their defensive potential next year because he has shown a tendency throughout his career to have given take in terms of his effort on that side of the floor.

Obviously, his defensive potential is insanely high with his physical tools, but he can just be lazy sometimes. When he was with the Lakers in Los Angeles, he defended extremely well. and then he went to New Orleans and took a bigger offensive role and kind of let go of the rope there. Had a pretty bad defensive season for the most part last year, but then was really good towards the end of the year, particularly in that playoff run. So that potential versus reality thing with Brandon Ingram, whether or not it's the good defensive version of Brandon Ingram or the lazy one, that's going to be a huge indicator

for them this season. Jose Alvarado is a really interesting defensive player too. Not just everyone will focus on the famous videos of him sneaking up from behind and taking the ball away, but he's just downright disruptive, even in the half court as well. He kind of reminds me of Patrick Beverly with his knack for freelancing, like randomly double-teaming or randomly sneaking from one side of the floor to the other. It's hard to explain. There's just like an instinct to it,

like a seeing things before they happen type of basketball IQ thing that some defensive players have. And Jose Alvaredo has that. And he's just got a knack for blowing up. plays by freelancing. Some players freelance and it destroys everything for your defense. Russell Westbrook, for instance, will freelance and almost always get burned. There are guys out there like Jose Alvaredo, like Patrick Beverly, you can do a little bit more of that freelancing without getting in as much trouble for it. It's a timing thing. It's an instinct thing. I don't really have a better way of describing it. But when Jose Alvaredo, Brandon Ingram and Irb Jones

were on the floor together last year, they had a defensive rating of 85.7. Now, it was in a pretty small sample size, only 46 minutes, but that's an interesting trio that I wouldn't mind seeing a little bit more this year. The key to them on the defensive end is going to be hiding Zion. Zion is a bad defensive player right now in just about every facet of the game. He's got bad instincts. His decision-making in terms of when to help versus when to stay with his man is poor. He gets up out of his stance when he's off ball. You'll see this in the film. Instead of sitting in his defensive stance, he'll kind of stand upright, which just makes you take that extra second to squat down into your stance before you close out or before you go help.

And as a result, that split second can cost you as a help defender. So those are just little disciplined things he's going to have to get better. As a result, they're going to have to pair him with a solid backline defender, like we talked about on the offensive end of the floor. So he's going to have to be alongside Larry Nance or Jonas Fallon Chuna's just to even be on the floor. I kind of prefer using him as like a wing defender in the sense that you kind of target him in a role where it's a little bit easier for him to make decisions. Like if he's in a primary backline role, he's going to have to make so many help

and recover decisions over the course of the game that it's going to hurt your defense. But if he's in more of a backside help role where he's rotating as opposed to meeting people at the rim all game long, I think he'll have a little bit more success. Obviously, in the long run, you'd like to see him be some version of Draymond, but there's just so far for him to go to ever get to that level that I don't think it's safe to count on it at that point. My favorite lineup with this group right now is C.J. McCollum, Irb Jones, Brandon Ingram, Larry Nance, and Zion. I think that gives you the flexibility to switch everything if you wanted to defensively. And then on the offensive end of the floor, you've got four guys

that can knock down shots to put around Zion. You can use Zion as your primary screen and roll threat or as an isolation threat. That's the lineup that I like the most. Either way, regardless of everything that we said, their defensive ceiling is somewhat limited because of the fact that you to play CJ McCollum, and you have to play Zion Williamson because they're two of your three best players, right? So because of that, naturally you're weak defensively at two spots on the perimeter. And then there are two backline defenders, and Jonas Valenchunis and Larry Nance or their screen and role defenders, they're both okay. Neither of them are great defensively in that role. So when you've got a weak defensive front line and then you've got two weak links

that need to play consistent minutes at the other four positions, there's just no universe where they're ever going to be an elite defensive team, like a defensive team that can lock in and get lots of stops in a row. That's just not going to be a thing that they're capable of. That puts a hard ceiling on them on that side of the floor, which inherently puts a hard ceiling on them in terms of their overall aspirations for this season. All right, let's take a look at the best case scenario for this Pelicans team. So obviously the best case scenario is Brandon Ingram and Zion both take leaps as defensive players, right?

Brandon Ingram gets to what he's capable of being, which is an all-defense level wing, and Zion Williamson just becomes a passable defensive player. C.J. McCollum kind of is what he is, but maybe you can get him to buy in and commit on that end of the floor. Erb Jones becomes a better shooter, thus being more of a perimeter threat on the offensive end of the floor to make his value greater with what he does on the defensive end of the floor. He also needs to get a little bit better attacking closeouts. Hopefully the Zion fit on the offensive end of the floor is natural and seamless, especially with what they need as a screener and without what he could do with dribble

handoff actions as the trigger man, and what he can do attacking matchups, which can change things in a playoff series. If they play a lot less, Yonis Valentunis, play with more pace, play with more Larry Nance, a little bit more five out, a little bit more up and down the floor to play into your athleticism more. I think if all of those things come together, this is a team that could have a top five offense and a top 15 defense. Obviously, like we talked about, their defensive ceiling is limited by playing so much Zion and CJ and with what they have in terms of backline defenders.

So with a top five offense and a top 15 defense, what are we getting? I think you could have a top four seed in the West. You could finish three or four there. And then you have a puncher's chance to make the conference finals. But I don't think it's reasonable to believe that if Golden State was healthy or if the clippers were healthy, that they would have any chance to win those series because both of those teams are every bit as good as what they can do on offense and significantly better on the defensive end of the floor. Obviously, with someone like Zion as a matchup problem, anything can happen. But I think this is a team that has a hard ceiling of the conference finals because of what they're limited by on the defensive end of the floor.

Obviously, their worst case scenario is injuries crop up again. Brandon Ingram, C.J. McCollum and Zion of all issues with injuries in the past, that lack of a defensive ceiling could end up biting them earlier than later. The fit with Zion could end up being clunky. Obviously, I don't think it will be, but that's a possibility if it ends up struggling, if Zion struggles in that role or if he wants to be on-balled more. Then in that case, it ends up being something that's more like a play-in team, something more like what happened last year, a team that's a team that,

that's frisky, a team that could take a game or two off of a one-seed or two-seat, but not a team that has a real threat. That's what I view is the worst-case scenario. And then most importantly, if Zion gets hurt again, then you've got to start having serious conversations about whether or not that draft pick has panned out the way that they hope and whether or not it might be worthwhile to move off of him. So his health is another thing that I would look at in terms of what the worst-case scenario

would be. All right, last but not least, who's the biggest X-factor on this team? I think it's Brandon Ingram. you know, in my player rankings, I put him as the 12th best player in the world. Now, that was probably a little high, and I was definitely, I was definitely judging him based on what I think he can be a little bit more than what he has been, based on what happened in that playoff series against Phoenix. We talked about that already in our mailbag.

I'm not going to get any further into it. But there was a case that Brandon Ingram is not even a top 25 player. I'm sure there were some of you who were listening that thought that someone the likes of Rudy Gober is better, or someone the likes of, you know, Trey Young is better or someone along those lines, right? But let's just look at that as a spectrum. This season, one of two things is going to happen. Brandon Ingram is going to continue to flash the playmaking

that he showed in that playoff series, continue to flash the high volume, efficient scoring. Like, I think he only averaged like 23 points a game in the regular season. That went up to 29 in the playing and 27 in the playoffs. What are we going to get from Brandon Ingram this year? Are we going to get the 27 point per game, efficient playmaking forward that's an all-defense-level wing, or are we going to get the 23-point per game,

nagging injury, non-focused defensive player that we got for large chunks of last season, right? And that swing factor is going to be the biggest difference between whether or not this is a Pelicans team that can make a run to the conference semis or conference finals in a team that remains stuck in the playing game. Brandon Ingram is the X factor of this team. He does struggle to stay on the court with injuries.

He is inconsistent with his buy-in on the defensive end of the floor. He does have long stretches where his scoring isn't as efficient or as high volume as it can be as we saw in that playoff series. So that is going to be the guy to watch this season as a Pelicans fan. If you see him going on an all-MBA type of campaign, that's a great sign for where this franchise is setting forward, and it's a great sign for what they're capable of if they end up in a playoff series against a good team. All right, guys, that is all I have for today. Back with number 14 tomorrow. As always, I appreciate your guys' support, and I'll see you then.

The Volume. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes.

Those people are starving for banter. humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes

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