season review

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photos-jrue-holiday-season-in-review-2019-2020-pelicans

Photos: Jrue Holiday Season in Review | 2019-2020 Pelicans

Jim Eichenhofer

A year later, New Orleans’ 2016 draft class has already helped yield a perennial All-Star, in the form of a trade that brought DeMarcus Cousins from Sacramento, which reportedly coveted Pelicans lottery pick Buddy Hield. The other member of last year’s two-player New Orleans draft crop may not provide dividends as quickly, but the potential is there down the road for Cheick Diallo to become a frontcourt contributor.

After playing sparingly during his one college season at Kansas (just 202 minutes), Diallo spent 2016-17 shuttling between New Orleans and the D-League, gaining valuable experience at the lower level. Diallo played a total of 724 minutes in the D-League for three different teams, finishing with per-game averages of 15.0 points and 8.5 rebounds. That learning experience appeared to pay off late in the NBA season, when Diallo posted a double-double on back-to-back nights to close ’16-17. Overall, when Diallo played 20-plus minutes – which happened in five games – he averaged 13.4 points and 10.6 rebounds.

“Cheick is one of those players who just needs experience,” Alvin Gentry said in his season-closing press conference. “There are going to be situations where he does a lot of great things, but there are going to be situations where he makes a bunch of mistakes, because he’s a young player. He didn’t play at all at Kansas, really. We sent him down to the D-League and he did a good job there.

“He’s one of those kids where it’s going to be very difficult for him to fail, because of the work ethic he has and the attentiveness he has for trying to get better and details. It may take a little while – he’s not a guy who’s going to jump off the screen and all of a sudden be doing this, but I think from a process of learning and getting better, he’s going to do that, because he’s going to put in the work every single day.”

NBA experience: 1 seasons (1 with Pelicans)  ||  Games played/started: 17/0  ||  Age: 20

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2016-17 Pelicans Season Review: Cheick Diallo

The details are extensive and complicated, but after a drawn-out, multi-month restricted free agency in 2016 for Donatas Motiejunas that involved his previous NBA team (Houston), a prospective suitor (Brooklyn) and a series of snags, Motiejunas ended up not signing a contract with the Rockets or the Nets. As a result, he ultimately inked an in-season deal on the fly with New Orleans on Jan. 3. It was a less-than-ideal scenario for the 7-foot center/forward, whose 2016-17 season began in a brand-new city, about three months later than he expected.

“This season has definitely not been close to what I wanted to have, or how I wanted to play,” Motiejunas said, prior to the Pelicans’ April 12 finale at Portland. “But it is what it is. I was put in – or I put myself, however you want to look at it – in this situation. I did it to myself. This season was not what I looked forward to.

“It was a tough situation. From one side, I was forced into it. From the other side, it was my choice, too. I cannot blame anyone besides myself about it.”

That inability to come to a contract resolution benefited New Orleans, which added a skilled frontcourt player, a much-needed reserve who provided depth for the Pelicans in January and February. In keeping with the general theme of Motiejunas’ campaign, however, an unexpected trade during the All-Star break for DeMarcus Cousins led to a diminishing role for the southpaw from Lithuania. Motiejunas initially appeared in 21 consecutive games after signing with New Orleans, but from Feb. 25 through April 4, he logged 11 DNPs out of a 20-game span.

From a team standpoint, Motiejunas hoped to help the Pelicans climb out of an early hole in the standings – they were 14-23 when he arrived – and keep his personal streak alive of reaching the postseason, but it didn’t happen. New Orleans was slightly better in games Motiejunas played at 16-18, but it wasn’t enough to earn the eighth seed in the Western Conference.

“Every year I was always making the playoffs,” Motiejunas said of his Rockets tenure, which was highlighted by a trip to the West finals in ’15. “It’s upsetting that we’re not there. It’s really tough. It’s not what I’m playing basketball for. I’m just not used to not being there. It’s frustrating.”

After an eventful, difficult season, Motiejunas is now almost right back where he started, but this summer he will be an unrestricted free agent July 1, able to sign with any NBA team.

NBA experience: 5 seasons (1 with Pelicans)  ||  Games played/started: 34/0  ||  Age: 26

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2016-17 Pelicans Season Review: Donatas Motiejunas

As much discussion as there was about New Orleans as a team being forced to make major adjustments on the fly following a February blockbuster trade with Sacramento, that was essentially the case for center Alexis Ajinca all season. Perhaps no Pelicans player’s role fluctuated as much throughout the course of 2016-17, with him going from seldom-used backup early in the campaign, to a starter for 10 consecutive December games, to DNPs in 22 of 23 contests between Christmas and mid-February, to back in the rotation but with sporadic DNPs in between. Ajinca closed ’16-17 by logging 24-plus minutes in each of New Orleans’ final four games (there were only three previous games all season in which he was on the floor for at least 24:00).

The Pelicans compiled respectable results during Ajinca’s total of 15 starts, going 7-8, including oddly a 5-5 road record (New Orleans was just 8-23 in other away games). New Orleans posted extremely rare victories in Memphis and Portland with Ajinca as a starter – granted, the latter was in a season finale that didn’t impact the Trail Blazers’ playoff status – as well as prevailing in Philadelphia and Phoenix (twice). At home, the Pelicans knocked off Indiana and Miami when Ajinca was given the nod at starting center.

Given how often Ajinca’s playing time consisted only of mop-up minutes – he logged fewer than 10 minutes in 12 of his 39 games – it’s difficult to fairly compare his performance to ’15-16, when he was a more consistent part of the rotation. But on a per-minute basis, he produced similar numbers, including finishing second on the Pelicans in blocks (1.4 rejections per 36 minutes) and fifth in rebounding (10.9 boards per 36 minutes).

Ajinca is now halfway through the four-year contract he signed with New Orleans as an unrestricted free agent in July ’15.

NBA experience: 7 seasons (4 with Pelicans)  ||  Games played/started: 39/15  ||  Age: 29

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2016-17 Pelicans Season Review: Alexis Ajinca

At just 48 percent of regular season minutes logged by returning players, New Orleans experienced the sixth-most roster turnover in the NBA last season, with only Brooklyn, New York, Chicago, Milwaukee and Sacramento giving less floor time to returnees from 2015-16 (on the opposite end of the spectrum at 85 percent, Portland was No. 1 in that stat, per Basketball-Reference.com). The offseason will partly determine where the Pelicans rank in that statistic in ’17-18, but they’ll enter the July 1 opening of free agency with fewer key unrestricted free agents than many clubs.

One such free agent will be combo forward Dante Cunningham, who declined a player option for next season, giving him the ability to sign with any NBA team. Cunningham will join Jrue Holiday and Donatas Motiejunas as the three New Orleans free agents who played significant minutes but will now be on the open market.

Since arriving in the Crescent City in 2014-15, the last time the Pelicans made the playoffs, Cunningham has been relied on for hard-nosed defense, rebounding and hustle plays. At the other end of the floor, he’s adapted to a leaguewide trend, as a 6-foot-8 big who now regularly launches three-pointers, despite never having done so over the first several years of his NBA career.

It’s not always easy to measure the Villanova product’s impact in statistics, though he finished fourth on the Pelicans in defensive win shares (1.6), trailing only Anthony Davis (5.1), Holiday (2.6) and Solomon Hill (2.3). One area where Cunningham experienced some bad luck in ‘16-17 was health, with him sustaining a broken leg in late November that caused him to miss 12 consecutive games. At the start of Cunningham’s tenure with New Orleans, he compiled a streak of 98 consecutive games played, including appearing in each of the team’s final 66 regular season contests in ’14-15. He logged 75 playoff minutes in that spring’s first-round series vs. Golden State, the first time he’d played in the postseason since a ’12 appearance with Memphis.

NBA experience: 8 seasons (3 with Pelicans) || Games played/started: 66/35 || Age: 30

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2016-17 Pelicans Season Review: Dante Cunningham

After signing a multi-year contract with New Orleans on the first day of free agency last summer, Solomon Hill’s debut campaign with the Pelicans often mirrored that of his new team. Hill provided valuable defensive contributions, helping New Orleans make an enormous jump in efficiency rankings at that end of the floor, but he didn’t find his stride offensively until the latter portion of the 82-game slate. For the Pelicans overall, that was a theme of their 2016-17 season, with defensive improvements not able to completely offset being ranked No. 26 in the NBA in offense (103.3 points per 100 possessions, via NBA.com).

“We felt like he was the guy that could guard that perimeter player we struggled with so much (to stop in 2015-16),” Pelicans second-year head coach Alvin Gentry said. “He had a run where he guarded Paul George and did a great job on him, Kevin Durant, guys like that. I think he did as good a job as anyone else guarding them did.”

With Hill helping to spearhead the effort, New Orleans was vastly better at containing the opposition, going from third-worst in the NBA in ’15-16 to ninth-best in the league (104.9 points allowed per 100 possessions, via NBA.com).

“I thought Solomon did a really good job of defending the best wing for opposing teams,” Dell Demps said, praising Hill for containing key scorers. “Sometimes when (an offensive player) just doesn’t get a shot, there is no stat for that. (Hill) did a good job with that for the most part. Offensively, it took a while for him to find his rhythm. I think that happens a lot when guys go to a different team. (Hill) was one of the guys who struggled when DeMarcus (Cousins) arrived, but then as the season moved on, he started to figure out his role and his spots and play better.”

Among Hill’s top six scoring games of ’16-17, only one occurred prior to Jan. 27, with him appearing to gradually become more comfortable and aggressive in the offense. Like their starting small forward, the Pelicans’ best stretch occurred later in the season, with a 10-6 March marking the club’s best month by a wide margin.

“I like the way we’ve been playing,” Hill said, following NOLA’s final home game April 4. “We’ve just got to try to handle business in the offseason, as far as taking care of our guys and bringing the right guys back. We’re definitely building for (next season) and we’ll see where it goes.”

NBA experience: 4 seasons (1 with Pelicans) || Games played/started: 80/71 || Age: 26

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2016-17 Pelicans Season Review: Solomon Hill

When Jordan Crawford signed a 10-day contract with New Orleans hours before a March 6 game at Utah, it barely made a ripple, just another in-season transaction buried in the agate type of a newspaper sports section. In short order, however, the shooting guard would emerge as one of the biggest bright spots of the Pelicans’ 2016-17 season and play so well that he became the new owner of an ultra-popular nickname (which later led to Crawford receiving a gift package from the Quaker Oats company. We’ll explain).

From the moment Crawford set foot on the Jazz’s home floor, he personified the term “instant impact,” knocking down a jumper mere seconds into his Pelicans debut. The buckets just kept coming over the next two months, as the Xavier (Ohio) product resurrected his NBA career and provided valuable scoring punch off the bench for the Pelicans. He’d spent the previous two-plus seasons out of the league.

Crawford finished the season as New Orleans’ fourth-leading scorer (14.1, behind Anthony Davis, DeMarcus Cousins and Jrue Holiday), despite averaging just 23.3 minutes per game. While compiling one of the best stretches of his NBA career, Crawford easily surpassed his single-season career highs in a range of categories, including field-goal percentage (48.2, his previous best was 41.5) and three-point percentage (38.9, topping 33.7).

“It’s definitely been a great experience, as far as play,” he said, the day after the season concluded. “I thought I could do better at times. I’m just thankful for the Pelicans accepting me. I just want to say thanks to them.

“I had a great experience here, won some games, kind of got on a roll, great coaching staff, GM accepted me, everyone accepted me.”

Having played for five different NBA teams, Crawford is one of the Pelicans’ more experienced players, but he’s only reached the postseason twice, something he’d like to increase in 2017-18. New Orleans won eight of its first 13 games with Crawford in uniform, perhaps its best stretch of ’16-17.

“I’ve always got to fight – that’s life,” Crawford said, when asked if it’s nice to have the comfort of knowing he played so well this season. “But it’s good to have something to work toward, to try to get better and hopefully make the playoffs next year. It’s an exciting time, just to get better.

“We’re close, for sure. But I think a lot of organizations are close. It’s about taking those steps that you know are needed, to get over the hump. It’s hard. It’s about fighting through adversity.”

NBA experience: 5 seasons (1 with Pelicans) || Games played/started: 19/0 || Age: 28

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2016-17 Pelicans Season Review: Jordan Crawford

One of New Orleans guard E’Twaun Moore’s individual goals for 2017-18 aligns nicely with the present and likely future of the NBA. A career 36.9 percent three-point shooter, the Purdue University product hopes to elevate his accuracy to an elite level next season, by reaching a mark that a record-breaking 32 of the league’s players achieved in 2016-17. The skill has never been more important in pro basketball.

“I want to try to be a 40 percent three-point shooter next season,” Moore said, prior to the Pelicans’ April 12 season finale at Portland. “I know I’m right under it now. If I can do that, it will space the floor and be a big help to our team, especially with the talented guys we’ve got.”

On a New Orleans club that placed 19th among the 30 NBA teams in three-point percentage (35.0), Moore’s perimeter threat was much-needed, particularly after a February blockbuster trade removed a pair of top shooters from the roster. Partly in efforts to make it easier for perennial All-Star bigs Anthony Davis and DeMarcus Cousins to operate, Moore produced a near carbon copy of his career shooting numbers, finishing at 36.9 percent on treys in ’16-17.

After signing with New Orleans last summer on the first day of NBA free agency, Moore was one of the Pelicans’ constants throughout the entire regular season, with his 73 appearances ranking third on the roster (Solomon Hill played 80 games, Davis 75). Filling his largest role as a pro, Moore posted career-bests in a few categories, including scoring average (9.6) and three-point makes (77). From a team standpoint, however, he was unable to return to the postseason, after reaching it previously once apiece with Boston and Chicago.

“Of course I wanted to come somewhere where I had a bigger role in trying to help a team win games, hopefully being on a playoff-contending team,” Moore said. “Those were a couple factors behind coming here. For me personally, it worked out fine. I had a solid year, but I’m going to work to get better.”

Off the floor, the Indiana native’s first experience of living in the Gulf South and playing in the NBA’s Western Conference was a memorable one.

“It was unique, very different than a lot of places I’ve been, especially with the culture and seeing parades, celebrations,” Moore said of being a New Orleans resident. “At first it takes some time to get used to, but it’s been fun. I like the people most of all – everyone is really friendly and welcoming.”

Moore’s exact role for ’17-18 remains uncertain, but it may be determined partly by New Orleans’ offseason moves. Of his 22 starts, 17 of them occurred before Dec. 1; the Pelicans were short-handed for much of that stretch.

“We’ll see over the summer,” Moore said of his future assignment. “I’m not sure if it’s going to stay (as a reserve), or if I’ll go to a starting role. I don’t know. It’s whatever works best for the team, honestly. Who doesn’t want to start? But if it’s best for the team to come off the bench to help us win games, I’m with it.”

NBA experience: 6 seasons (1 with Pelicans) || Games played/started: 73/22 || Age: 28

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2016-17 Pelicans Season Review: E’Twaun Moore

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