The young New Orleans Pelicans rookies have learned valuable lessons off the bench.
While the New Orleans Pelicans season is all but lost, they've had an opposite approach to the end of the year than most losing teams. They've stopped starting their young players and have been more focused on seeing what their veterans look like together.
Because of injuries and the early-season outlook for this team, Derik Queen and Jeremiah Fears ended up starting. Pelicans management got a great look at them, but it didn't produce much winning.
Now that they are healthy again, playing better basketball, the rookies have been sent to the bench and are now coming out with the second unit.
"They have a base for what this league feels like. And now we've had some different lineup changes. I think Fears has been really fantastic since we made the move. His uptick has been significant. I think his awareness of who he is, what we need, his role, decision making, and understanding defensively for him and for us to be successful. He has to be an anchor for us defensively, to be into the ball, to be a pest, to be a hound out there, and he's taken that challenge on," said head coach James Borrego.
Fears was benched a little bit before Queen, so he's had a little bit more time to ease into his role. The guard is a little bit more adjusted to it than his teammate.
Over the first 46 games of the season, where Fears started all but the first two, he was averaging 13.9 points, 3.7 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 1.2 steals per night on 26.4 minutes and 43.5/32.0/80.6 shooting splits.
In the 23 games since the move, those numbers are now 11.7 points, 3.7 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 1.0 steal on 22.5 minutes and 40.7/37.1/74.5 splits.
So the change isn't really costing him that much opportunity, but he looks way more comfortable on the second unit right now. He's embraced shooting the ball more and being that group's facilitator.
"Queen has been a little bit more recent. And he's trying to find his way through that. And we have a number of bigs now. We have a number of guys we can play through," said Borrego. "And so he's working through that transition, but he's handled it professionally, maturely. His response has been there, especially on the defensive end. That's where we're really leaning into, and he's learning."
Borrego has also never underplayed the importance of DeAndre Jordan being on the team, especially when talking about the impact that the veteran has had on Queen.
"[Queen]'s asking questions. I think DeAndre [Jordan], just being that veteran presence for him, if he can lean into that, which he is doing, he's going to take a massive step between now and next year," added the coach.
Over the first 57 games of the year, Queen averaged 12.3 points, 7.3 rebounds, 4.1 assists and 1.1 steals on 26.1 minutes and 49.4/29.1/77.5 splits.
In the last 11 games, that has dropped to 7.6 points, 5.4 rebounds and 2.6 assists on 19.6 minutes and 38.4/23.1/89.3 splits.
It's clear that the change has been much tougher on Queen, but it should still be good for him in the long run. While the numbers look worse, he has actually contributed more to winning basketball in that second-unit role. He was an average -4.2 in +/- before and is a +0.7 now.
"Really proud of those guys. They've done a good job of embracing it," closed Borrego on the subject.