New Orleans Pelicans: Anthony Davis is the X-Factor

The New Orleans Pelicans wish to rebound after a lost season, and Anthony Davis is the key. Can he lead them back to the playoffs?

The New Orleans Pelicans should be a perennial contender.

There are three paths to take when building a team around a superstar. With one, you trade or sign other veteran stars to play alongside them. That can work, as recent teams such as Boston, Miami, and Cleveland have shown. Putting the right stars together can launch a team to a title. But assemble the wrong collection of stars, and you are strapped to an expensive disappointment, as Brooklyn and Los Angeles have experienced recently.

The second path is the opposite route, using the draft to add talent in order to build a young core that will grow into a contender. Oklahoma City set this standard, and Golden State rode it to a title and a historic season before changing to track one. Minnesota is an example of a team in the early stages of such a plan. If you don’t draft the right pieces, then your superstar languishes in mediocrity, as Sacramento has shown.

Path number three is the one New Orleans embarked upon. When they have a young superstar not yet in his prime, some teams sign a plethora of mid-tier veterans to build a functional rotation around him. The Knicks did this with their pair of stars this offseason, adding players to prop up Kristaps Porzingis. Accelerating a team’s timetable rarely works, and yet teams continue to try.

New Orleans did just that over the last two seasons, adding players such as Tyreke Evans, Dante Cunningham, Quincy Pondexter, and Omer Asik. With Anthony Davis looking like the next true superstar, the Pelicans went after win-now pieces to put around a player who wasn’t yet ready to “win now”. Injuries ravaged the squad last season, and things are already off to a shaky start with Evans not yet healthy and Jrue Holiday missing the beginning of the season to (admirably) be with his sick wife.

In the end, the pieces around Anthony Davis are not the issue. They’re mediocre at best other than Holiday, but they aren’t the primary reason the Pelicans toppled from their 2014 playoff berth. For any team built around a superstar to succeed, they need superstar-level play. In the end, it all boils down to the Unibrow. If he plays at an elite level, the Pelicans will make the playoffs. If he stays passive and waits for the team around him to step up, they will repeat last year.

The hinge for this upcoming season, the fulcrum for all of New Orleans’ dreams, rests on the shoulders of one Anthony Davis. He is the X-Factor for this team.

Sky-High Expectations

Entering last season the hype for Anthony Davis could not have grown any greater. He was the second coming of Kevin Garnett, of Wilt Chamberlain, of every legendary big man. After leading his team to the playoffs ahead of schedule in 2015, the media was ready to crown Davis the next face of the NBA.

Every year NBA.com polls the league’s general managers to ask about the upcoming season. When asked about MVP for last season, general managers put Steph Curry fifth – the reigning MVP playing for the league’s best team. Clearly they whiffed on that. LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and James Harden finished above him, all prior recipients of the award or a runner-up.

And then sitting in second place was Anthony Davis, entering his fourth year in the league. 25 percent of general managers picked Davis to win the MVP, more than Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, and Russell Westbrook combined. When asked the question of what player they would choose to build a franchise around, 86 percent chose Anthony Davis. Not one vote was given to Steph Curry.

Davis was the most popular pick among ESPN’s experts, and their forecast team had him second with three times as many votes as Curry. Other outlets raved about his elite defense, his new 3-point range, his impact with and without the ball. The world was ready to crown Anthony Davis.

Falling Short

Unfortunately, that crown was never bestowed. The New Orleans Pelicans collapsed out of the gate last season, with injury upon injury tearing the rotation apart. Things didn’t get better either, as many players suffered setbacks and others came back a shell of their former selves. At times the Pelicans started Nate Robinson, Kendrick Perkins, Luke Babbitt, Orlando Johnson, James Ennis, Jordan Hamilton, and Tim Frazier. No Pelican started more than 64 games last season.

Surrounded by a severe lack of talent, Anthony Davis never took off. He had a solid year, putting up 24.3 points, 10.3 rebounds, and 2.0 blocks per game. Had he played the full year, Davis most likely would have been on an All-NBA team. But injuries of his own ended his campaign after 61 games, and thus he fell short, and was not to be found on the MVP ballot in the end.

In additions to the roster around him and his own injuries, Davis attempted to add to his game in a way that may have ultimately hurt him. With the modern NBA opening up the court, Davis focused on sharpening his 3-point shot. On the surface this would be a good thing, but the implications eroded other aspects of his game.

When Davis was spotting up for a 3-point shot, he was not near the basket waiting to slam home an offensive rebound. When he was hitting 32 percent of his threes, he was not hitting 70 percent of his shots around the basket. Opposing teams didn’t guard the pick-and-roll the same way when Omer Asik was barreling to the hoop and Davis was standing in the corner. The offense gummed up and Davis’ best attributes were partially washed away with his newfound toy.

Bouncing Back

The New Orleans Pelicans almost have to be healthier this season, as last year was a cataclysmic combination of ailments. If players such as Quincy Pondexter and Tyreke Evans return without losing a step, this team can reasonably expect to be in the playoff hunt. Everyone in New Orleans and across the country is praying for Jrue Holiday’s family and that his wife’s recovery from brain surgery this fall goes well and he can return to the court soon.

The team’s new additions will play a factor in the team’s success as well. Solomon Hill hopes to be a poor man’s Ryan Anderson, albeit with much better defense and on a much cheaper deal, E’Twaun Moore will shore up their backcourt depth, and Langston Galloway could develop into a solid rotation piece at either guard position. Buddy Hield had a shaky Summer League, but he’s an elite shooter, and this team needs shooting.

Third, the coaching staff needs to deliver on the hype of last offseason. Alvin Gentry worked closely with Steve Kerr to develop the league’s best offense in 2015, and won a championship with the Golden State Warriors. Coming to New Orleans, he was supposed to revolutionize their offense and lead them to the next step. He brought with him defensive guru Darren Erman to shore up a shaky defense.

Neither one delivered on the expectations of the season before. With another offseason and training camp to lay in place their system, the coaches will have much fewer excuses this season if the Pelicans fail to launch. Players such as Holiday and Davis have two-way skills, but the staff needs to unleash those in the best ways. If things don’t come together, Gentry could find himself on an ever-hotter seat.

But ultimately it all hinges on Anthony Davis. He is the team’s franchise star, the point on which this team’s success hinges. If Davis polishes up his game, plays with intensity, and stays healthy, the sky truly is the limit. There are not five more talented players in the world than Davis, and the potential for him to put everything together is within reach.

If he does so, then this team will compete in a tough Western Conference middle class for a playoff berth. Outside of three or four teams, no one in the West is guaranteed a spot in the playoffs. The Pelicans have less talent than many of their competitors, but few teams have a star like Davis. When the best player on the court plays in your jersey, you always have a chance to win. A finish in the 6-8 range is not out of the question.

Anthony Davis is the answer to that question. This season, everyone but opposing defenses will be hoping for Davis to regain his form and make the leap from superstar to supernova.