re: KOC: League sources "expect" Pelicans to be aggressive in trade market

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Time for Griff to mend that relationship.

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The problem with that relationship is not Griff or the Pels.

I’m willing to take Murray and work with Klutch but they don’t run the show here.

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We were 25th in 3PAs this year, we need to shoot more not stay the same

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I've pointed it out many many times to all of you. Find a 5 that can shoot and this issue gets fixed, on top of replacing BI with someone who will shoot a few more.
BI and JV/Larry took 6.4 attempts per game. JV/Larry with just 2.6.
As a team we were at 33 a game.

Celtics shot the most at 43 a game. Porzingis and Horford are taking 5 and 4 attempts a game respectively.

Dallas was next at 40 a game.Grant Williams and PJ took 5 & 6 a game to Zion's none.Klieber was at 2. Our 4/5 combo are taking less than 3 a game, and there's are taking 8.


ZIon isn't going to take more 3's. We can't have our 4/5 combo take less than 3 a game. that's where the problem is, and it's why if you make a trade for say Murray and Jarret Allen, we still aren't going to jack up 40 3's a night more than likely. We can do better than 33, but it's not necessary to take 40. A few teams a year get to that level, and more often than not they die in the playoffs b/c you live and die by the 3, with the Warriors being the exception, and likely the Celtics being the exception this year.

37-38 is a good number for us with Zion.



Denver averaged 31 last year, and this year. You dont' need to shoot 40 a game to win a championship. They played the Lakers in the WCF, who shot 31 a game, and the Heat in the finals, who shot 35 a game.

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Totally agree. We can't just dump CJ, as much of a postseason choker as he is, we can't replace his shooting unless you're getting a high volume guy back.

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It's not so much that we can't dump CJ.

It's that we can't keep BI, then swap CJ for that "true point guard" everyone wants that doesn't shoot the 3 nearly as good and most importantly, nearly as much as CJ.

We already start Zion with only 1 volume shooter in CJ, we should not then start Zion with 0 volume shooters, that's going in the wrong direction.


The only way it makes sense to trade CJ is if you're also trading BI and somewhere in there, you're getting a volume shooter back. But I see no world where we trade both, so as I've been saying for 2 years now...it's BI. It was always BI.

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And that's what's needed if you lose BI. You have to get a PG back that can create on his own and get his own shot off, and Murray can do that.
No more BI and Zion playing PG.

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I agree with your entire post on Murray here, but you do have to sell CJ on coming off the bench.

I know it's easy for some to say, "you just tell him he's going to the bench, and that's that" but obviously team dynamics and politics, it's not that simple.

I'd hope he'd be receptive to that. I just don't think we'd trade both BI and CJ in 1 offseason, but for the right pieces, I'd certainly be in favor of it.

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I'd hope he'd be receptive to that. I just don't think we'd trade both BI and CJ in 1 offseason, but for the right pieces, I'd certainly be in favor of it.

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I don't think we would either, but we should.

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I know it's easy for some to say, "you just tell him he's going to the bench, and that's that" but obviously team dynamics and politics, it's not that simple.

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and that's 100% true. I keep mentioning bringing in Tobias, but he'd have to come off the bench as well and i doubt he'd like that. Granted if we gave him a 3/$100M contract that no one else wanted to give him, then maybe he would be more open to it.

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It's baffeling to just about anyone, fans and media alike.

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Crazy thing was, I don't even think it was him playing due to injuries then going back to not playing due to team being healthy again.

In the 16 games before the SAC/LAL in season tourney games, he was averaging 14ppg on 42% from the field and 40% from 3.

Then we played SAC in the IST and he got a DNP. Then we played the Lakers and it was essentially a DNP, but he played garbage time in the 4th quarter.

To my knowledge, no one returned to the rotation those 2 games, so why did he come out?

After that, he got somewhat consistent minutes again from mid Jan to the end of Jan, and in 22mpg he averaged 11ppg on 46% from the field nd 45% from 3.

Then inexplicably, he was done, no more consistent rotation minutes for the rest of the season for...reasons?


Final 24 games, 9.5mpg, 3.3ppg on 30% from the field and 28% from 3. And important to point out, he didn't play poorly and slowly lose minutes. He just lost them all at once.

Willie is an idiot is all the explanation you need on why

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Don't understand it either.
BI is such a dificult guy to defend when he has a head of steam to the goal. His Euro step and length makes it easy for him to finish. I don't understand how he doesn't undersand this. I'm not saying he's Giannis, but BI is one of the closest guys to him when it comes to getting to the rim using long strides and long arse arms. Giannis doesn't play slow, ever.


As someone else mentioned, he simply plays too slow. The reason Denver make the leap is b/c Jokic got in shape and started pushing the pace. If Doncic does the same thing this offseason and gets in better shape and pushes the pace more they are going to be difficult to beat. Zion can do the same thing. We've watched Lebron do this for 21 years. He's nearly impossible to stop like that in transition. Jokic and Luka aren't at that same level of athleticism as Lebron. Zion is.

Nothing irritates me more than us dribbling the ball 35' from the basket and not actually getting into any kind of play until there's under 12 seconds left on the shot clock. We probably are near the top of the league in that if it was a stat.

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It's infuriating. The only time he wants to use his incredible size and length to his advantage is when he's shooting a contested middy over someone.

Like if you arent going to shoot 3s at least go to the basket but he refuses to do that.

One of the biggest wastes of god given size and length i've seen.

What is the expectations on Karlo Matkovic this offseason, BTW?

If he is already playing for Birmingham, the idea is that we likely sign him and he could be a key 4-5 for us.


Basketball Reference says he isn’t a high volume 3pt shooter but he does have some range and is hitting about 30% or so of them.

Which would be nice, but I’m wondering how much leeway that gives us with regards to changing our starting center and backup bigs.

We either need to resign JV or replace him, and we likely need to replace Nance long term because of his injury issues.


Having Karlo and Robinson-Earl gives us at least some stopgap bigs on affordable contracts while we look to change our key guys.