Things are looking up for the New Orleans Pelicans.
Anthony Davis says so.
From The Times-Picayune‘s William Guillory:
“We’re going to be a special team, we feel it,” said Pelicans forward Anthony Davis, before correcting himself. “We don’t feel it, we know it.
“We’ve just got to keep playing the way we have–playing hard on defense and sharing the basketball. Any time we step onto the floor, we feel like we can beat anybody in this league.”
Fairly strong talk for the star of a 3-3 team. It helps that the New Orleans Pelicans have two of the five best big men in the game on their roster. And it also helps that the Pelicans destroyed the Cleveland Cavaliers over the weekend and now rank fifth in points scored per 100 possessions, per NBA.com.
Still, this team is very much a work in progress—particularly when it comes to finding an identity outside their Twin Titans.
In the 112 minutes both Davis and DeMarcus Cousins have spent on the floor this season, the Pelicans are a plus-41, according to NBA.com—which is nuts. But the Pelicans are a different team when playing with only one of them. They’re a minus-30 in the 49 minutes Davis has played himself, and a plus-eight in the 110 minutes Cousins has logged on his own.
The latter return is encouraging, since it suggests the Pelicans should be able to carve out a plus-team overall. But last year’s stingy defense is hovering inside the bottom 10 of efficiency, and New Orleans doesn’t have the depth, at any position, to navigate absences or protracted slumps.
Davis and Cousins have shown they can work together, which is good. Yet, the fate of the Pelicans lies, and always has lied, with the talent—or lack thereof—assembled around them.
