Wednesday NBA Roundup: Anthony Davis and Pelicans Learning Pain of Lost Season
Russell Westbrook and the Oklahoma City Thunder know the sting of a wasted season, and it looks like Anthony Davis and the New Orleans Pelicans will soon know it, too.
Those two teams (what remained of them, anyway) came together Wednesday in a patched-up, star-stripped tilt that went the Thunder's way. OKC took the game by a score of 110-103.
Kevin Durant sat out with a strained hamstring, and the Pelicans took the floor without Anthony Davis (shoulder), who joined key absentees Omer Asik, Jrue Holiday, Tyreke Evans, Norris Cole and Quincy Pondexter. New Orleans fielded just nine NBA bodies, and two of them were Alonzo Gee and Jimmer Fredette.
So...seven. Make that seven.
Ridiculously short, which they've been all season, the Pellies slipped to 1-11 on the year—a far cry from where so many of us expected them to be in mid-November.
Russell Westbrook dominated, producing 43 points, nine rebounds and eight assists on 14-of-25 shooting. His takeover habit, developed last year when Durant missed so much time, is a good transition point to get back to the Pelicans and the profoundly frustrating hand they've been dealt.
See, the Thunder endured what turned out to be a wasted year in 2014-15 as Durant underwent three foot surgeries and the team fell short of the playoffs. At first blush, what happened to OKC last season seems worse than what looks to be ahead for the Pelicans because the Thunder were a title contender—one listening to the deafening sound of Durant's free-agency clock ticking away.
But because Oklahoma City got to learn a few things that ultimately made its long-term prospects better, the lost season didn't sting quite as much. The Thunder found out Westbrook was nobody's second fiddle, they determined Scott Brooks' time was up, and they even learned to appreciate the urgency of their situation, which led to trades that made this roster as deep as any they've had.
The Pelicans may not be so lucky.
They can't get enough players on the floor to learn anything.
Can Tyreke Evans play well enough to be part of the long-term plans? New Orleans can't say.
What about free-agents-to-be Ryan Anderson and Eric Gordon, who combined for 48 points in Davis' absence Wednesday? The Pelicans can't fairly judge them if they're playing much bigger roles than they will in whatever iteration of this franchise eventually competes for something meaningful.
The uncertainty extends to Alvin Gentry's system, too. How can anyone assess whether Gentry is doing anything to improve on what former head coach Monty Williams did if he never gets to put a full roster on the floor? And by the time the Pelicans get healthy (if they ever do), the team's record may be so bad and the season so clearly over that judging him in that environment would be equally useless.
Then there's Davis, who has suffered injuries to his hip and shoulder already and who has been visibly frustrated by the lack of help all year. That we're being robbed (so far) of what should have been his true transcendence toward greatness is the biggest bummer of all.
We don't know what Davis can be yet. Neither does Gentry. Neither do the Pelicans.
That's a problem because he's a player with seemingly infinite possible roles ahead of him, and in order to build the best accompanying roster, New Orleans desperately needs to figure out the optimal way to use Davis. If he's a stretch 5, that informs the rest of the front office's personnel decisions. If he's a strict pick-and-roll threat or a mid-range assassin or a post-up beast, everything about how the Pelicans make decisions changes.
Maybe he's all of those things. But how much will New Orleans get to see of the real Davis if the games he plays this year don't matter? And what can it learn when Davis is surrounded by the injured and ineffective?
A lost season is bad, but a lost season from which you can't even learn anything is worse. The Pelicans appear headed for the latter.
Ricky Rubio Is What Young Wolves Need
Two teams with an inordinate stash of young talent squared off Wednesday when the Orlando Magic beat the Minnesota Timberwolves by a final of 104-101 in overtime. And while Evan Fournier's go-ahead triple with three seconds remaining decided the result, it was hard not to leave impressed by the Wolves' process.
The Wolves went waaaaaay old in their search for veteran influences, bringing in Tayshaun Prince and Andre Miller to join Kevin Garnett. Clearly, they put an emphasis on mentorship—which is smart when you've got two 20-year-olds who profile as franchise-altering superstars in Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins.
Ricky Rubio falls somewhere between those kids and the senior citizens (he's only 25, but this is his fifth season), and his role in the development of the young Wolves might be more important than anyone else's.
Because he's out there on the floor directing traffic and making everyone better.
Like this:
NBA analyst Britt Robson noted the way Rubio has taken a utilitarian approach to setting up his young teammates:
Now, admittedly, part of the reason this blurb exists is that it's an excuse to show that sweet dime. But that play, this game and Minnesota's general approach to building its next era are all worth highlighting. Because while the Magic have no shortage of studs under 25 (Victor Oladipo, Tobias Harris, Elfrid Payton, Aaron Gordon, Fournier and Mario Hezonja), they lack the crusty old vet to season those raw ingredients.
And they certainly don't have a Rubio, who toes the line between young and old.
The win eluded them, but both Towns and Wiggins played huge roles down the stretch, finishing regulation with a huge block and a bucket, respectively. Maybe it's a stretch, but it feels like the surrounding roster both guides and empowers those two.
This game helped show why the Wolves are in the best position of any young, rebuilding team. And it's why they'll be worth watching for the next decade or so.
The Process Is Raising Questions
The Philadelphia 76ers have gone to extremes in their teardown-to-rebuild effort, giving away seasons more brazenly than any organization we've ever seen. That commitment to futility, it seems, knows no bounds.
Philly incurred a second-quarter technical foul for having six players on the court in their 112-85 loss to the Indiana Pacers. It also topped the league-high 27-turnover mark it set just days ago, this time coughing up the ball 29 times.
Which prompted this, per Candace Buckner of the Indianapolis Star:
They didn't need to surrender the free point, of course; Indiana was comfortably in charge after a mildly competitive first period. Paul George's 34 points, eight rebounds, five assists and four steals carried the day and, most likely, only served to motivate the Sixers to dive deeper into the tank.
They need a guy like George, and they're clearly committed to accumulating as many lottery chances as it takes to get him.
The Celtics Have Chosen Role Models Wisely
Kelly Olynyk knew what he was doing there, and the only thing better than the attempt at Dirk Nowitzki's one-legged fadeaway was that the originator himself appreciated the homage, per Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald:
Now, if the Boston Celtics want to model themselves after an older, successful original, they could hardly do better than the Dallas Mavericks, who showed the upstart C's a thing or two in a 106-102 comeback win Wednesday.
The Mavs have always been defined by unselfishness, innovation and consistent success (only the San Antonio Spurs have a higher aggregate winning percentage over the past 15 seasons). Boston is clearly on the right track—loaded with young talent, led by Brad Stevens in the Rick Carlisle role and only getting better, as its recent surge against a tough slate proved.
What the Celtics lack is a superstar of Nowitzki's caliber—you know, someone capable of scoring a game-high 23 points on an ultra-efficient 9-of-14 shooting night. The unprotected pick headed Boston's way from the Brooklyn Nets this June should take care of that.
The win, by the way, was Dallas' fifth straight.
The Raptors Just Keep Fighting
One night after pushing the Warriors to the limit, the Toronto Raptors hung around until the very end of a 93-89 loss to the Utah Jazz. That's a brutal back-to-back set, but the Raps slowed things down and played their ugly brand of competitive ball in both.
Though they didn't log a win in either instance, they clearly weren't intimidated by a tough set against a couple of good West teams.
Similarly, DeMar DeRozan was undeterred by the long odds of success facing his dunk attempt against Rudy Gobert:
That play turned out better for the Raptors than the game itself, and it showed how Toronto isn't afraid to do things the hard way. That'll serve this team well as it battles for a top-four seed in the suddenly competitive Eastern Conference middle class.
Can One Shot Save a Season?
Probably not, but Corey Brewer's game-tying heave at the end of regulation sure didn't hurt.
The fate of the Houston Rockets' season hasn't been decided one way or the other. But they had to beat the Portland Trail Blazers, losers of six straight coming in, after firing Kevin McHale and playing with virtually no life through the first three quarters.
B/R's Jonathan Feigen observed signs of life late:
James Harden would finish with 45 points, 11 assists and eight rebounds.
And Brewer hit the big (mostly lucky) bucket that pushed the game to overtime, where the Blazers kind of coughed it up, going for twos when they needed threes in the final minute and committing a couple of ghastly turnovers.
Yes, this was a win over a reeling Blazers team. Yes, it was a nail-biter. And yes, the Rockets spent most of the contest repeating the lapses in effort and bad habits that got McHale canned. Nobody should be too fired up in Houston over this one.
But imagine the alternative scenario where Brewer's shot doesn't fall and Houston drops a home game, its fifth straight, to an opponent on its own six-game slide.
Yeah. Yikes.
Mike Malone Gets It
Hey, guess what: The San Antonio Spurs are cruising!
Despite LaMarcus Aldridge kind of not fitting and Tony Parker's jets having enough fuel one night and none the next (they had plenty Wednesday; he scored 25 points and handed out nine assists), the Spurs have now won six games in a row and established themselves as the clearest threat to the Golden State Warriors' Western Conference crown.
They beat Mike Malone's Denver Nuggets, 109-98, on Wednesday, but beforehand, Malone summed up the reason San Antonio just keeps winning when all of its pieces aren't quite in place, per Chris Dempsey of the Denver Post:
It doesn't matter who the Spurs toss out there. The system, which is actually bioengineered hardware implanted in each player's brain stem that Gregg Popovich controls via telekinesis, makes everyone great.
Maybe the Spurs can test Malone's theory in their next game by trotting out a lineup of Matt Bonner and some D-League call-ups. They've got the Pelicans next, so it'd probably work.
Stats accurate through games played Nov. 18 and sourced from NBA.com unless otherwise indicated.
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