Like many of his teammates, Pelicans guard Nickeil Alexander-Walker has struggled out of the gate this fall, prompting Christian Clark of NOLA.com to take a look at his season thus far. The 1-10 Pelicans currently have the NBA’s worst record, and while a lot of that is a result of the extended absences of All-Star forwards Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram, Alexander-Walker’s slow start certainly hasn’t helped.
Clark notes that Alexander-Walker has been one of the worst volume shooters in the league, connecting on 35.5% of his 15.4 field goal attempts a game, including 25.3% on his 7.9 three-point looks. Among players attempting at least 10 field goals per night, he currently ranks 114th out of 117 in true shooting percentage. Clark wonders if Alexander-Walker, and the Pelicans, would be better served by correcting the 6’6″ shooting guard’s shot profile (he shoots more from long-range than from within the arc) and attempting more shots inside the paint and fewer from the three-point arc.
There’s more out of the Southwest Division:
- With stalwart Grizzlies swingman Dillon Brooks poised to return to the hardwood for Memphis for the first time since the 2021 playoffs, Chris Herrington of The Daily Memphian takes a look at how Brooks could spruce up the club’s defense. Brooks has been absent for the entire 2021/22 season to this point with a left hand fracture.
- Though Rockets power forward Christian Wood seems to be irked about the club’s clear desire to tank in the short-term, he has made a point to express publicly that he wants to stick around, per Rahat Huq of The Houston Chronicle. “I’m here to stay in Houston through the good and bad,” Wood tweeted this week.
- Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich has revealed that he does not expect center Jakob Poeltl to return from the league’s COVID-19 health and safety protocols this week, per Tom Orsborne of the San Antonio Express-News. “I am not exactly sure” of the big man’s timetable, Popovich said. “They tell me every day, but I’m not a scientist. I listen to what they say, but I know he is not going to be ready for tomorrow or Friday.”
Tank away! Been going on for decades and probably continue for decades.
Unfortunately this is what happens when you draft a player in the lottery but then refuse to play him at all over the first 3 years, for the likes of Eric Bledsoe, Devonte Graham, Herb Jones, Garrett Temple, the list goes on. The Pelicans have quietly been one of the more incompetent organizations in all of sports over the past decade, yet they rarely catch any flack.
i remember following zion, jaxson, and Naw on summer league and preseason 2 years ago, and thought to myself, wow! this team has so much potential.
Look at them now….
I really don’t want Houston to trade Wood, but if the return is big, do it. A good return and the young guys develop, that could be pretty good quickly.
It’s not like Wood is an aging veteran in his 30’s like John Wall is. He just turned 26 recently and has barely scratched the surface of his full potential.
I only wish they had signed him for more than 3 years. Wood is barely in his prime, and will still be when the younger guys are entering their prime years.
There’s no reason to trade him, if anything they should be working on giving him a really big extension before he becomes a free agent again in 2023.