In comparison to opening night of the 2017-18 regular season, New Orleans will have at least two new starters Oct. 17 in Houston, with only Anthony Davis, Jrue Holiday and E’Twaun Moore remaining on the roster from the quintet that tipped off the campaign at Memphis last fall. During the portion of Thursday’s practice at the Ochsner Sports Performance Center that was open to the media, one group that competed together consisted of the frontcourt tandem of Davis and Julius Randle, the backcourt duo of Holiday and Elfrid Payton, as well as small forward Solomon Hill. But there are countless combinations fourth-year head coach Alvin Gentry will be able to evaluate during a five-game preseason slate, particularly when you consider that Nikola Mirotic started the Pelicans’ final 14 games of ’17-18 (including the playoffs), while Moore started a total of 89 times.
Complicating matters somewhat is the fact that New Orleans has a pair of scheduled back-to-backs among its five upcoming exhibition games, starting with a Sunday/Monday set in Chicago and Atlanta, respectively. That could make it slightly more difficult to distribute minutes in a conventional fashion.
“We haven’t made a definite decision, but obviously in preseason we’re not going to play guys extended minutes in back-to-back games,” Gentry said after Thursday’s practice of the approach to playing time. “It’s going to be important for us, in the (Oct. 7) open practice, scrimmages and (regular) practices that we get a lot done. We also have to look at some situations in practice that we normally would’ve done in preseason games (in previous years), so we can get a feel for rotations and combinations of guys we’re going to play.”
With 19 players on New Orleans’ roster and only center Alexis Ajinca unavailable for action short-term, Gentry will have a significant number of options in terms of doling out playing time in preseason. In addition to reserves such as Cheick Diallo who need more pro experience – the 22-year-old big still only has 76 career games under his belt – New Orleans has several players new to the club and/or the NBA. Rookies Frank Jackson, Trevon Bluiett and Kenrich Williams have only participated in summer league thus far, while Randle, Payton, Jahlil Okafor, Jarrett Jack, Troy Williams and Darius Morris are all pickups since July.
In terms of learning and adapting to Gentry’s up-tempo emphasis and plan of attack on offense, it also will require players to adjust quickly.
“The (start of the regular) season is a lot earlier than it used to be,” Hill said, referring to the NBA essentially cutting preseason from four to three weeks. “You kind of have to speed that process up.”
Other notes from Thursday’s practice in Metairie:
Gentry on Payton’s extensive recent time spent to improve his jumper: “He works as hard at it as anybody I’ve seen. He’s in here three times a day working on it. When you put in that kind of work, he’s going to improve. The thing we talked about with him is if he misses his first three shots (in a game this season), will he shoot the fourth? In our system, if you pass up a good shot, it’s as damaging as taking a bad shot. We want to give him confidence and make him feel like he’s going to be a good, solid shooter.”
Over his four NBA seasons, Payton has shot 45.7 percent from the field, which is a reasonably good rate for a guard, but a big chunk of that number comes from the 6-foot-4 guard finishing around the basket. He is a career 29.8 percent three-point shooter, an area that he likely will need to improve if defenses play off him and allow him to fire open jumpers, as was often the strategy by New Orleans opponents when facing Rajon Rondo in ’17-18.