By Sean Kennedy
Not a long preview for you guys today as I have to help my mother clear out her house to get it ready for listing. (Some of the best advice I could ever give you is to go through your stuff every few months and get rid of what you don’t need. Don’t let things pile up!) However, there’s too much I find interesting about tonight’s game to not touch on it at all. First off, the Pelicans are a team Sixers fans should be keeping an eye on as the team owns New Orleans first-round pick this season (top-5 protected). Right now, the Pelicans sit at 3-6 on the season, which is kind of a perfect pace from Philadelphia’s perspective in that it’s bad enough to be in the lottery but not quite abysmal enough to fall into the bottom five. Let’s hope that continues.
Obviously, much of the talk leading up to the game will surround former Sixers all-star and franchise cornerstone Jrue Holiday facing his old team for the first time. As much as it hurt to see Holiday go this past offseason, being that he was a talented young player and also a very likable guy, most fans understood the move from a long-term organizational perspective. It’s certainly helped that Michael Carter-Williams got his NBA career off to such a blazing start (it’s tough to miss an ex- when you’re dating such a hot new thing). Holiday has struggled a bit in his move to New Orleans, as his numbers are down across the board playing alongside Eric Gordon and Tyreke Evans, two players who also thrive with the ball in their hands. It would be one thing if his counting numbers were down simply based on usage, but Jrue is also shooting a career-low 39.8% from the floor and averaging a career-high 4.1 turnovers. Certainly, it’s just 9 games but New Orleans fans probably expecting better in exchange for the 2 first-round picks they gave up for Holiday.
No Pelicans preview would be complete without talking about the meteoric rise of Anthony Davis. The Unibrow has exploded in his second season in the league, basically breaking the systems that measure player efficiency. Davis is averaging 21.8 points and 11.2 rebounds per game, while shooting 48.3% from the field and 87.1% from the foul line (on 6.9 attempts per game!). So he’s basically shooting from the floor like an elite center and from the line like an elite guard, and that’s not even the best part of his game! Davis may play for the Pelicans, but he has the wingspan of a wandering albatross (that’s the bird with the largest wingspan per the Internet). The man gets his hands on anything within a Bourbon St radius, leading him to insane numbers like 3.1 blocks and 2.1 steals per game. With Davis in tow, if the Pelicans can ever figure out their guard rotation, they’ll be in business.
One other item of note is Ryan Anderson planning to make his season debut against the Sixers tonight, coming off a fractured toe injury. He shot 38.2% on 6.9 attempts from long range last season, so he’s certainly someone that could eviscerate the Sixers if they don’t keep an eye on him. I’m sure fans remember a couple of his long-distance displays against the team while a member of the Magic.
Enjoy the game tonight everyone, should be a very entertaining contest.
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