With Davis Locked In, Time For Demps To Deliver

The 2015 NBA free agency period started off with a bang as Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reported All-Star forward Anthony Davis and the New Orleans Pelicans agreed to terms on a five-year, $145 million deal – the maximum allowed.

Shortly thereafter, Davis posted the following message on Twitter to confirm Wojnarowski’s initial report.

https://twitter.com/AntDavis23/status/616094429984616448/photo/1

When the Pelicans traded All-Star point guard Chris Paul to the Los Angeles Clippers before the start of the 2012 campaign, the future outlook appeared bleak for the franchise. However, the team lucked up and received the No. 1 overall selection in the 2012 draft and subsequently selected Davis.

What a difference a few years make as the Pelicans now head into the summer coming off a 45-win campaign and Davis emerging as a potential perennial MVP candidate.

The Pelicans also introduced a new head coach in Alvin Gentry, coming off a championship run with the Golden State Warriors, earlier in the offseason.

Franchise player locked in? Check. New head coach to lead the troops? Check. Now it’s time for general manager Dell Demps’ front office expertise to build a team that can truly compete for a title around Davis.

On paper, Demps has provided Davis with a strong supporting cast.

Point guard Jrue Holiday is a former All-Star. Versatile wing Tyreke Evans is a former Rookie of the Year. Shooting guard Eric Gordon was once considered one of the better young prospects at his position before being sent to New Orleans as part of the Paul deal. The team also invested big money in forward Ryan Anderson and center Omer Asik in separate deals.

Once again, on paper, Demps assembled a decent core to work with. The problem is this same core hasn’t been able to share the court with each other much over the past few seasons.

Holiday has appeared in just 74 games with the franchise the past two seasons, missing 90 games due to injury.

Anderson has missed 81 games the past two seasons.

Gordon, while being absent just 39 games the past two seasons, has missed a total of 151 games over the course of his four campaigns in New Orleans.

Davis has missed double digit games in each of his first three seasons due to injury (47 contests total).

But Davis is just scratching the surface of his potential and the Pelicans will need to improve their roster further to keep pace in the ever improving Western Conference.

According to Basketball Insiders’ Eric Pincus, the Pelicans won’t have much financial flexibility to play with this summer in free agency. So outside of the Davis signing, don’t expect much more in the way of fireworks on Bourbon Street over the next few months.

Here is the team’s current salary cap breakdown entering the free agency period:

Current: No space, MLE, BAE, TPEs ($1.1 million, $507k)

Cap Holds: Omer Asik ($12.6 million), Norris Cole ($5.1 million), Jeff Withey ($1.1 million – R), Luke Babbitt ($947k), Alexis Ajinca ($947k), Jimmer Fredette ($947k), Dante Cunningham ($947k)

Non-Guaranteed: Toney Douglas ($1.2 million)

Maximum Cap Space: $8.2 million, RE

Demps successfully kept the team on the right course after Paul’s departure and has the franchise pointed in the right direction with Davis soon to be locked in long term. But it’s going to take his entire arsenal of veteran savvy and creativity to now build a true contender around Davis.

There are big smiles going on in New Orleans right now, but make no mistake the pressure is on Demps to spearhead the jump from a low level seed into the upper echelon of the Western Conference relatively quick.