Cursed from the start, Alvin Gentry's time in New Orleans has finally come to an end. A deep dive into every major storyline that took place en route to Gentry's firing.
After five seasons and only one year above 35 wins, Alvin Gentry has been dismissed as the head coach of the New Orleans Pelicans. Yesterday marks the end of an era that Pelicans fans have been begging for since before Gentry was even hired.
To truly understand the hot seat Gentry has been sitting on, you have to go back a year before he even became head coach and examine who sat in the seat before him.
The Broken Monty Williams Promise
Before there were screams to fire Gentry, there was support for the scrappy Monty Williams-led Pelicans.
In 2012, Williams and a disgruntled Chris Paul led the then-Hornets to 46 wins and a first-round exit.
Chris Paul would go on to force his way to Los Angeles and leave Williams and the Hornets with some of the worst starting fives in the league.
The team won just 48 games across the next two seasons.
Due to my own PTSD, I won't go into too much detail on how bad those teams were, but just know Jarrett Jack was the best player on the team and Tom Benson was able to buy the franchise for less than Patrick Mahomes' new contract.
But, amidst the losing, there was hope.
Insert, the trade gems Eric Gordon and Ryan Anderson along with number one pick Anthony Davis in 2012 and all-star Jrue Holiday and former Rookie of the Year Tyreke Evans in 2013.
The former Hornets turned Pelicans were a new team, and the playoffs were expected.
Injuries never allowed that core to truly succeed, as Tyreke Evans was the only player out of the five core pieces to suit up for at least 70 games in either the 2013-14 or 2014-15 season, but Williams and the Pelicans managed to meet expectations.
With Jrue Holiday, Eric Gordon and Ryan Anderson each missing at least 20 games, Williams somehow salvaged the 14-15 season by moving Evans to point guard and riding MVP finalist, third-year Anthony Davis to the eighth seed of the playoffs.
The Pelicans would go on to get swept by the Warriors, but things were finally looking up.
The injury-plagued team achieved a major milestone, held their own against the eventual NBA champions, and had a 21-year-old establish himself as a perennial MVP candidate.
The future looked bright for the Pelicans.
Then, as soon as it began, it was over.
Ownership went back on their word and fired Monty Williams without consulting Davis or then-General Manager Dell Demps.
The resiliency Monty Williams and the Pelicans displayed in the 14-15 season combined with Williams' mistreatment turned him into a coaching martyr in New Orleans.
Whoever filled his role next would have to pull a Steve Kerr and unlock a Pelicans dynasty to justify the way Williams was fired.
Alvin Gentry, Dell Demps and More Injuries
"AD we're going to be right back here next year," screamed then-Warriors Assistant Coach Alvin Gentry, as champagne flew across the locker room.
Depleted by injuries, the Pelicans didn't come close to champagne locker rooms the next season. In fact, they lost 52 games, just three less than Davis' rookie season.
In Gentry's first season as head coach, the only Pelicans players to play in 70 or more games were Dante Cunningham and Alonzo Gee. The two pillars of health averaged a combined 10.6 points per game.
To show for the team's 30-52 record, the Pelicans landed the 6th overall pick in the 2016 NBA Draft and selected sharpshooter Buddy Hield. Hield was selected one pick before point guard Jamal Murray—a player who could have served as an instant upgrade over the team's starting point guards that season: Tim Frazier, Norris Cole, Jimmer Fredette, Ish Smith and Nate Robinson.
Hield would go on to be the last Pelicans first-round pick of Anthony Davis' New Orleans tenure and inadvertently play a key role in Gentry's cursed tenure, but first, a number of terrible offseason moves by Dell Demps had to take place.
Dell Demps Digs a $100 Million Hole
After being traded from the Rockets for the Pelicans 2015 first-round pick, Omer Asik averaged 7.3 points, 9.8 rebounds and 0.7 blocks per game and according to Demps earned a five-year, $60 million extension.
Demps followed his 2015 offseason up by allowing two of his most valuable trade assets in Eric Gordon and Ryan Anderson leave for Houston in free agency in 2016. Losing two starters in the offseason for nothing would be enough to earn most GMs an 'F' offseason grade, but Demps decided to go all out for his failing grade.
Demps signed free agent small forward Solomon Hill to a four-year, $48 million deal after Hill averaged 4.2 points per game and a career-high 44% field goal percentage in the prior season.
Granted, this deal took place during a stretch of inflated contracts.
So let's cut Hill's salary in half and see if paying a player with similar a production comes close to a 4-year, $24 million deal with their actual contract. Alfonzo McKinnie averaged 4.6 points on 43% shooting and he is currently on a 4-year, $7.2 million contract.
All of that to say, a player of Hill’s caliber is worth almost 1/7th of what Demps paid him in 2016.
The Pelicans were now locked into over $108 million to two players that would never average more than a combined 9.7 points per game with the team.
These two contracts, along with the justified six-figure deals of Davis and Holiday, resulted in one of the most depleted rosters in the league for the 2016-17 season.
26 different players played for Gentry this season, and half of them started at least one game. Some of the most notable, or insignificant, names to start that season: Terrence Jones(12 starts), Hollis Thompson(8 starts), and Wayne Selden Jr(3 starts).
Out of sheer desperation, Dell Demps pulled the trigger on a trade to send Buddy Hield, Tyreke Evans, Langston Galloway and 2017 first and second-round picks to the Sacramento Kings for DeMarcus Cousins.
Cousins had one year remaining on his deal, meaning Demps was betting on his ability to retain the center or risk losing essentially two first-round picks and a player that helped lead them to the playoffs two years earlier for nothing.
The Golden Year and the Achilles Tear
The 2017-18 Pelicans are probably my favorite team of all time. I went to at least 20 games that season with my brother, and to this day, I would argue that if DeMarcus Cousins would've remained healthy, the Pelicans would've made the conference finals.
But that's an article for another day.
Let's focus on what made this team and season so special.
Anthony Davis became a shooter.
Alvin Gentry is famous for his early involvement in the "7 seconds or less" philosophy. That system doesn't work if the floor isn't spaced, and the floor can't be spaced if defenders can sag off non-shooters. Davis' three-point percentage going from sub-30% to a respectable 34% helped him average a career-high 28.1 points per game and pushed the Pelicans offense from 26th in offensive rating to 10th.
2. DeMarcus Cousins was the perfect center for Anthony Davis.
A case can be made that Cousins was more of an MVP candidate than Davis in 2017-18—a season that Davis finished third in MVP voting.
Cousins averaged a career-high in field goal efficiency, assists, rebounds, three-pointers made and three-pointers attempted. He provided the brute interior force that Davis needed while also being able to step out and give Davis space to work the post.
3. Quality role players
After budding heads with multiple coaches, Rajon Rondo had little to no leverage come free agency, and Dell Demps was able to sign a starting point guard for $3.3 million. Rondo assist hunted for much of the season, but when it mattered most, he lived up to his resume. Nikola Mirotiç and his shoot-first mentality made him the perfect power forward for Gentry's system.
But Mirotiç was never supposed to be a Pelican.
His addition was another desperation trade by Demps after Cousins tore his Achilles 48 games into the season.
With Cousins' Achilles tear, the magical season was over.
The Pelicans would go on to make the playoffs and upset the Portland Trail Blazers for the team's first playoff victory in a decade, but as great as the victory felt, it didn't matter in the grand scheme of things.
Resigning DeMarcus Cousins was the only thing that mattered going into the offseason because resigning Cousins meant locking up Anthony Davis.
"You have to take it year by year and see how it goes. That's how I'm approaching it. Of course [DeMarcus Cousins] is a big factor, what he is going to do or not," said Davis at the 2018 All-Star Game, after Cousins tore his Achilles.
The Pelicans didn't resign the big factor.
The End of Anthony Davis and Dell Demps
After failing to resign Cousins and Rondo, Demps tried to fill the voids with Julius Randle and Elfrid Payton. Despite Davis reportedly recruiting Randle, it was clear before the season even started that he had one foot out of the door.
By midseason, Davis made his trade request official, and the rest is history.
Again, due to my own PTSD, I won't go into detail on this period of the cursed Gentry years, but I will go into what took place on the court during this stretch.
Julius Randle, a career 29% three-point shooter, became the go-to guy in Gentry's offense and had a career year. Jrue Holiday joined Randle with a career campaign of his own, averaging career-highs in points(21.2), assists(7.7) and rebounds(5).
And neither mattered.
The 2018-19 season was like a fever dream for Pelicans fans.
I'd rather watch Jarrett Jack lead the team again than watch another season of Julius Randle play hero ball while Anthony Davis nonchalantly drifts around the court.
I just wanted it to end, and on February 15th, 2019 it finally did.
Dell Demps, who ex-commissioner David Stern himself called a "lousy GM", was done calling the shots for the Pelicans and was replaced by David Griffin two months later.
New Era, Same Curse
Things felt different coming into the 2019-20 season. The Pelicans looked like the team Gentry promised back in 2015.
They went 5-0 in the preseason, averaged over 125 points a game, and despite losing a top-5 player, the team was able to operate like number one pick Zion Williamson had been there for years.
There was a fluidity to the offense that made it look like anyone could drop 20 points on any given night. Part of that was because for the first time in seemingly all of franchise history the Pelicans had a roster full of talent.
Not even one full year on the job, David Griffin undid the $100 million hole dug by Demps and constructed a team worth being excited for.
This was both the best and worst news for Alvin Gentry.
On one hand, Gentry finally had a full roster capable of contending. And on the other hand, the excuses of yesteryears, like injuries, incompetent rosters, or superstar trade demands, wouldn't save his job anymore.
Regardless of injury or time with the roster, if Gentry couldn't win with this team of arguably 12 rotation players, he wasn't the guy the Pelicans needed going into the future.
As far as the Pelicans and injuries go, 2019-20 was as good as it gets.
Nine of 12 key players were available for 60 of the team's 72 games, and only two players, Kenrich Williams and Zion Williamson, missed over a third of the team's games.
Regardless of the impact Zion Williamson has on the Pelicans, Gentry had no excuse for starting the season 6-22, losing 13 straight games or going 2-6 in the bubble to finish 13th in the Western Conference.
Teams have done a lot more with a lot less.
Just look at what the coach Gentry replaced got done the year he was fired.
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Awesome read!!!