The Pelicans enter their first full season with Davis and fellow big man DeMarcus Cousins. They also hired assistant coach Chris Finch from the Nuggets, who started Nikola Jokicand Jusuf Nurkic last year. Davis, via Scott Kushner for The New Orleans Advocate: “I know they were saying we could be kind of like (Nikola) Jokic and (Jusuf) Nurkic and how they did stuff in Denver before,” Davis said. “They kind of ran their offensive package through those two big guys who were skilled. That’s what we are hoping he’s looking to do with me and DeMarcus.” Jokic and Nurkic were terrible together. The Nuggets got outscored by 15.6 points per 100 possessions when the duo shared the court. In that time, they looked like the NBA’s worst offense and one of the league’s worst defenses. Denver eventually benched Nurkic, and Jokic took off toward stardom. Nurkic sulked, and the Nuggets felt like they had to trade him. They sent him to the Trail Blazers in a horrible trade for Denver. Nurkic thrived in Portland, but only because he stopped playing with another center. The Nuggets knew this predicament was coming and tried to prepare for using both centers together. It wasn’t enough. Succeeding with two centers sharing the court is tough in the modern NBA. Davis and Cousins could work together. They both offer far more shooting range than Nurkic, and Davis is by far the most versatile defender of the four. But if New Orleans’ bigs click, it’ll be because Finch learned what not to do from the Jokic-Nurkic pairing. http://nba.nbcsports.com/2017/08/03...ns-become-like-nikola-jokic-and-jusuf-nurkic/
bigs like AD who dunk a lot and play above the rim often get injured or have shortened careers....he'd be wise to add some Tim Duncan pace to his game and not burn up his talents playing for highlight reels....my concern about AD is that he could be a candle burning to fast to last.
He's a guard in a PF's body. He grew from 6'2" to 6'10" in one year. I still think he needs to play like guard because IMO he's not really a "big". He is a big as much as Draymond is.
It didn't work for Jokic and Nurkic. Why aspire to be a mismatched pair. Does he want cousins to come off the bench behind him? Or vice versa?
NOP needs to go all in on playing two BIGs. They need to stop trying to adapt to "today's NBA" and make "today's NBA" adapt to them. They need to stop trying to turn DeMarcus Cousins into a stretch 4. They need to play to their strengths, just pound the ball into the paint and let the big guys dominate. Make other teams pay for playing small ball. It may not work, but whatever that was they tried to do after the trade deadline sure as hell didn't. It's not like they have a lot of great 3-point shooters anyway. Saying nobody else plays that way is a cop out. Nobody else has Anthony Davis + DeMarcus Cousins. BNM
I could grow all my hair on my head long and have Hulk Hogan hair and it would just be me. Tweezers aren't illegal.
