We've talked about players that needed to step up without so many frontcourt players. In my opinion, Lopez hasn't gotten enough credit for his play without LA, Leonard, Freeland and Robinson. It's not that he's upped his scoring, but he's stepped up every other part of his game. Defense, boxing out, defending the paint and blocking shots like a mofo. He's been the key to our season. Just a genius move to get him by Olshey.
And a dumb as fuck move by New Orleans to GIVE HIM AWAY so they could overpay Tyreke Evans. Seriously, WTF were they thinking??? Lopez was an underpaid center who, at the age of 24 started all 82 games for them last season, put up a career high PER = 18.9 and had two years left on his contract at a little over $5 million/year. They GAVE him to us to free up cap space to sign Tyreke Evans, a player without a position, who has already feuded with his coach about his role on the team, to a 4 year deal at $11 million/year. They already had Jrue Holiday and Eric Gordon as their starting backcourt. So, Evans is playing back-up SF, even with all the injuries the Pelicans have had, Evans hasn't started a single game for them - and people here think Batum is overpaid. And, he HATES his new role and has bitched to Monty about it. WTF was the NOP front office thinking? Sounds like they wanted to try to move Eric Gordon and replace him with Evans as the starting SG, but couldn't get any takers for Gordon. So, now they are stuck with an $11 million/year back-up SF whose scoring average has declined every year he's been in the league. His FG% is .396, and he shoots .145 from 3-Point range (makes Andre Miller look like Steve Kerr). It's moves like this that explain why the Blazers are 40-18 and the Pelicans are 23-34. Just think how much better the Pelicans would be if they had just kept Lopez and used the extra $6 million in cap space to sign some half way decent back-up SF. They gave away a healthy, young, underpaid, starting center so they could overpay a disgruntled, underperforming back-up small forward. Thank you!!!! BNM
