CBS Sports 2013 NBA Draft Winners and Losers by Matt Moore After a crazy 2013 NBA Draft, the dust has settled, we think... The brief recap: Cats and dogs, living together, mass hysteria. WINNERS New Orleans Pelicans: Yes, (the Pelicans gave up Noel and their 2014 first round pick). But Jrue Holiday is an All-Star player who makes their team instantly better. He combines well with Anthony Davis, and with Ryan Anderson, and with Eric Gordon. He can score, he can pass, he can defend. It works perfectly for them. LOSERS All sense of logic and reason: The trades were fast and furious, and seemed to signal complete upheaval of the draft order right from the start. A night of total chaos left analysts scrambling to figure out who was going where. We knew it would be unstable, and it lived up to every expectation thereof.
USA Today's Adi Joseph: The 76ers may be overpaying for Noel, but they obviously are prioritizing getting a center in place after their Andrew Bynum trade failed last season. Of course, knee injuries were the problem for Bynum, and Noel has the same issue lingering. Holiday was the best player on the 76ers last season, and now he's a Pelican. Jrue Holiday is an All-Star. He represented the 76ers last season in the midseason showcase. He's a young, talented, hard-working point guard, a commodity in the NBA....But the Sixers obviously were willing to blow things up and be bad for a year in hopes of winning the Andrew Wiggins sweepstakes (with their own pick, as the Pelicans' pick is protected next year). Let's get one thing out of the way: The Pelicans didn't trade away their shot at Andrew Wiggins. The 2014 draft pick they gave the Philadelphia 76ers along with Nerlens Noel is protected, and that may not matter much. New Orleans should be pretty good next year, provided Anthony Davis can stay healthy. Holiday is an All-Star...He has a great contract and a great attitude and should pair perfectly with Davis. this draft was all about Holiday and Noel for the Pelicans. They already have (Davis). Noel is a poor man's Davis in some regards, and trading him made sense. They got an All-Star and now have a roster that could contend for the playoffs. That's a good draft.
Jordan Schultz of the Huffington Post: New Orleans Pelicans: A+ Incredible job by New Orleans to acquire Jrue Holiday for Nerlens Noel and a couple picks. Holiday -- whom I've loved since his UCLA days -- is a premier player already, and -- as you might know -- I think Noel could wind up being one of the real disappointments of this draft. The pick-and-roll combination of Holiday and 2012 first overall pick Anthony Davis will be lethal. ... The 2014 first-round pick is 1-to-5 protected -- making it a redeeming element for this team because of how incredible that draft could be. Think Andrew Wiggins, Pelicans fans! Philadelphia 76ers: C- I hate trading assets for unknown commodities, and that is exactly what the 76ers did with All-Star point guard Jrue Holiday. Nerlens Noel is a major project, and point guard Michael Carter-Williams is another intriguing talent who screams bust. The future first-rounders could be nice, though.
Ken Trahan, President/General Manager of SportsNOLA.com, Sports Director of both WGSO, 990 AM and WTIX, 690 AM New Orleans, General Manager and Chairman of the Board of the Saints Hall of Fame Museum, Vice President and emcee of the Greater New Orleans Quarterback Club, and former Assistant Athletic Director at the University of New Orleans: Trade for Jrue Holiday a Gift for Rebuilding Pelicans Call it smart. Call is shrewd. Call it superb. Call it sweet. Call it salty. Call me stoked. The move to acquire Jrue Holiday from Philadelphia was inspired, intelligent stuff by Dell Demps and Monty Williams. Nerlens Noel has talent, the talent to affect and block shots, but he is painfully thin, without an offensive game, with a knee that is a bit of a concern, a project. New Orleans needed someone who could score and bolster a mediocre offense. Holiday is better than any player picked ahead of him in the first round of what most observers considered a very average, nominal crop of first-round talents in the 2013 NBA Draft. By comparison, Holiday is a sure thing, a proven commodity as compared to the uncertainty of virtually every player chosen in the first round. What is not to like about him? He is under contract for four years, so you can control him and build with him. Holiday signed a four-year, $41 million dollar extension last November with Philadelphia. He is under control through the 2016-2017 season. Holiday is young (23-years-old) but has good experience, with four years in the league. He is improving annually. He can score and distribute the basketball. He is durable, having played in all but 14 games in his four-year NBA career with a couple of those being DNP-Coach's Decision scenarios. He missed just five games over his last three seasons. ... Holiday made the NBA All-Star game for the first time last season. Holiday was a McDonald's All-American in high school at Campbell Hall in North Hollywood, California and was an excellent player at UCLA. Last season, the...Hornets beat the 76ers 111-99 on January 15 at Philadelphia. In the defeat, Holiday was a beast, scoring 29 points, including 4-of-5 from 3-point range, dished out 11 assists and had four steals. Think that got the attention of Demps and Williams? Holiday has decent size (6'3, 180) and is a pure point guard. He can certainly play shooting guard, if needed, next to Grevis Vasquez. Of course the opposite combination is more likely at times. Vasquez can easily assimilate into a 20-25 minute per game player and be very effective after his breakout season in 2012-2013, providing the Pelicans choose not to move him via a trade. ... With that in mind, where does this leave Eric Gordon? The best guess is that Gordon will be given one final chance to prove that he is all in, prepared to finally commit completely to being the best player he can be, playing with bumps and bruises and becoming a true team player. If he displays any signs to the contrary, he will not remain here for long. With Holiday, Gordon and Ryan Anderson, you have players who can score. Vasquez can get his own shot. Anthony Davis will mature into a scorer. Holiday gives the Pelicans a genuine scorer and a young talent to grow with. You have to like the youth of the Pelicans. As mentioned, Holiday is 23. Davis is 20-years young. Gordon is 24. Anderson is 25-years old. Vasquez is 26. Rivers turns 21 in August. Robin Lopez is 25. Jason Smith is 27. Al-Farouq Aminu turns 23 in September. Darius Miller is 23. This is a young roster with room to grow. Holiday, Davis and Anderson will continue to improve. Gordon certainly can get better, with his ability. Rivers has a chance. Lopez was better last season. The jury is out on Aminu and Miller but they are young. Smith, who played with Holiday in Philadelphia, gave his former and new teammate a ringing endorsement as a person and a player, calling him "underrated." His name suggests a pleasant time. The Christmas holiday is a time of giving. The Pelicans got quite a gift when they won Davis in a wild lottery circumstance. They received another gift with the acquisition of Holiday. Good move! (his article also linked to another article by SportsNOLA.com that said,) Like the Saints, New Orleans will have a Drew - or in this case a Jrue - leading the way in New Orleans. The 23-year-old Holiday, a first-round draft pick in 2009 out of UCLA, averaged 17.7 points and 8.0 assists over 78 games last season. He joined Wilt Chamberlain (1967-68) as the only players in franchise history to average at least 17.0 points and 8.0 assists in a single season. New Orleans now has a long-term solution at the point guard spot.
Times Picayune: Acquisition of Jrue Holiday shrewd move by New Orleans Pelicans general manager Dell Demps ...Thanks to the whims of the wildest, wackiest NBA draft in years, Demps was able to squeeze off what could be the most significant trade of his action-packed tenure. ... When Nerlens Noel fell into the Pelicans' laps at No. 6, it provided the trigger-happy GM with exactly the ammunition he needed to pull the trigger on a deal to land All-Star point guard Jrue Holiday. ... Demps must have pinched himself at his good fortune. It was a dream scenario for the Pelicans ... The Holiday deal was a slam dunk. ... Holiday is a sure thing. He's an All-Star. By all accounts, he was the best young point guard in the Eastern Conference. He's durable, having missed just five games the past three years. And he fits the Monty Williams mold. He's humble, boasts a team-first attitude and plays defense with a vengeance. And best of all, he just turned 23. The Pelicans didn't need Noel. He's Anthony Davis lite, a less-talented version of the Pelicans' franchise player. ... The trade for Holiday was the 16th of Demps' three-year tenure. And No. 16 was the sweetest of them all for Dealer Dell.
So, do we try to upgrade at small forward, too, w/a FA, or stick w/what we got? The roster is looking pretty good except we are SG heavy, and SF light. Some of the PFs can play SF, too, I think, and some of the guards are hybrids, but I wonder if we'll swap out 1-2 SGs for a good SF? Could also bring in an undrafted rookie like CJ Leslie (NCSU). I thought they would have directed the 76ers to draft a SF, like Leslie, with that 42nd pick. Can Aminu be more solid w/the upgrade at other positions, or do we need to bring someone in? Here's what I've got as our proposed current roster: PG: JHoliday, GVasquez, ARivers SG: EGordon, BRoberts, RMason JR, XHenry and pick #42 2nd round from 76ers C: RLopez, ADavis, JSmith PF: RAnderson, ADavis, JSmith, LAmundson, LThomas, EBavcic SF: AFAminu, DMiller
I've seen several sportswriters that cover the Pels who think we are targetting a SF in the FA which is about to start. I've already seen two articles by the Times Picayune (by the same guy?) about it, the first one suggested we go after the top SF available this FA (29-year-old Andre Iguodala), the second article suggested Chris Copeland would be our top SF target, with other our SF targets including: Iguodala, Portland’s J.J. Hickson, Minnesota’s Chase Budinger and Milwaukee’s Mike Dunleavy Jr. The head guy at a Pelicans blog also thinks we target a SF this FA, saying he thinks we should trade GV and/or Lopez in an uneven trade that works out better for the other team to make sure we get a SF we want (although he said multiple times there are infinite possibilities). His first suggestion is Earl Clark, but he also mentioned Wilson Chandler, Martell Webster, and said he has more suggestions coming. Another writer at the same blog has suggested Andrei Kirilenko, Dorell Wright, even Metta World Peace Fletcher Mackel suggests Joe Ingles, Mike Dunleavy, and Austin Daye So yeah, it's crazy. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that the West is really, really strong next year, and this is a weak FA class. Next year however, there is going to a monster FA class that is looking to shake the whole league up "Certain summers are league-changing and this summer doesn't appear to be one," said Steve Kerr, a TNT analyst. "Next summer will be interesting" in summer 2014, "you could see a dramatic power shift in talent," said Kurt Rambis, an analyst for ESPN and Time Warner Cable SportsNet. "You could go from Eastern Conference power to Western Conference or vice versa. Some of these are hypotheticals, but it could all change real quick." So when you're talking about a young team and signing guys to three-plus year contracts, you've got to consider the big picture, and that might mean waiting until summer 2014 to sign our SF, or it might mean signing him this July Like Demps said, you need to think about all the angles: ``You look at it and you say ‘if we get this guy, we might not get this guy in free agency,’ or ‘if we don’t get this guy in the draft, we need to look at this guy in free agency or in a trade,'' Demps said. ``So, really we’re looking at all angles.” ``We want to upgrade the roster,” Pelicans general manager Dell Demps said after this past Thursday’s NBA draft. “They’re (ownership) giving us all of the resources we need to upgrade the roster. That’s what we want to do.’’ As for Aminu, he is now an unrestricted FA: ``I can only worry about today,’’ Aminu said. "I just have to let stuff happen when it happens.’’
A Pelicans blog did a Q&A with Tom Sunnergren, Editor for Hoop76.com - the ESPN TrueHoop Network blog for the Philadelphia 76ers... We see the stats, but tell us things that the numbers don’t tell us about Jrue Holiday, the player. He’s one of the best handfuls of defensive guards in basketball, which an area of the game that the stats are still mostly mute on. (This is one of the reasons why he’s, probably, a bit underrated by measures like PER and Win Shares...) He’s got great footwork, quick hands, is stronger than he looks, and on many nights, can guard three positions. He’s also a tremendously personable and likable guy. He’s bright, engaging and engaged, and a great interview. By both fans and media, he’s beloved in Philadelphia. We were all really rooting for the kid, and...he’ll be missed.... He WAS the Sixers...He’s only 23 How about Holiday’s intangibles? Is he a leader and/or a a high character guy? What about his effort and motor? In addition to the effusive praise above, Jrue really–even among cocksure NBA athletes–is possessed of unusual self-confidence. When Ben McLemore was being dissected in the run-up to this year’s draft, a talking point I heard again and again was that he’s easily discouraged; if he misses the first two shots of a half, I think Chad Ford said, he’ll shut down and disappear. That is not what Jrue Holiday does. knowing Jrue Holiday’s game, what would be the ideal components to put on the court around him to help him thrive? A big fella to wreak your garden variety pick-and-roll havoc with and, at the 2-4 spots, perimeter oriented guys who can stretch the defense, creating enough space for Jrue to continue to hone his dribble/drive slash-and-kick game. Sound like any team you know? From the comments: -This last part blew me away. It's almost like the Pelicans were building to add Jrue. Last piece is adding starting SF with a good perimeter shot, and we have options there in free agency. I am so pumped about next year! -I called one of my friends in Philly, and he couldn't believe that we stole him away. Also, is anybody else getting their Jrue Holiday jersey the day it becomes available?
Chris Paul on Jrue: "I like him. No, I love Jrue's game," former Hornets point guard Chris Paul, told the Philadelphia Inquirer earlier this year. "Me and Chauncey Billups actually talk about him all the time. We always talk about the young point guards in the league. I think a lot of times he actually gets overlooked. "I love his game, I love his poise, and I love his athleticism. I love the way Jrue plays the game."
