Joe Dumars can make a mark on Pélicans via the project | Pelicans

Forty years ago, the Strait Pistons selected a 22 -year -old guard of Natchitoches with the 18th choice of the NBA draft.

It was the start of a career at the renowned temple for Joe Dumars, who won the NBA titles as a player and president of basketball operations at Motor City.

Now, Dumars, during his first season as an executive vice-president of New Orleans basketball operations, is fortunate to try to reproduce this success as principal decision-makers, this time for the NBA team in the state he was born and raised.

His next movements came Wednesday with the draft of the NBA, where he will add his first new pieces.

What Dumars did on Tuesday and what he will do on Wednesday and Thursday could greatly help determine the future of a team that comes out of the second season in the history of the franchise.

“We have good talents on the list,” said Dumars. “When this team was in good health, it was a great team. Unfortunately, last year, it was decimated from injuries, and I recognize it. But that does not prevent you from putting the bar higher and pushing more difficult to be better.”

The Pélicans have two first -round choices. They have the overall choice n ° 7 after going from n ° 4 to n ° 7 at the lottery. They added the choice n ° 23 in a business with the Indiana Pacers last week. Now they also have a choice n ° 40.

Pelicans should be able to get a quality player with their first choice. Analyst projects are raging the depth of this class. The Dallas Mavericks will certainly take Duke’s Cooper Flagg with the first overall choice, and the San Antonio Spurs will certainly choose the Rutgers goalkeeper Dylan Harper Second.

“There are three different levels,” said ESPN project analyst Bobby Marks on Tuesday during a Q&R project. “Where is Cooper. Where is Dylan Harper. And then there is a group of five or six players of this level 3, and that’s just a question of what you like and who you think.”

Dumars and the senior vice-president of Troy Weaver basketball operations should have many viable options at n ° 7. With Olynyk now left, Duke Center Khaman Maluach seems to be able to fill a need for size and athletics. Guardians such as Ace Bailey de Rutgers or Jeremiah Creats of Oklahoma could also be available.

Dumars had this to say when he was asked for his philosophy project with regard to the best available player and satisfied a list need:

“I don’t think you wanted to transmit a better player,” said Dumars. “But if everything is equal, then you go for the need. But if there is a gap between two players, you have to take the best player. You need some talent in this league, so you cannot transmit this talent. Basketball talent has more impact. There are only five people on the field. So, this talent Gap can make a difference. That’s why you really want to take the best player.”

Finding this talent is the reason why Dumars hired Weaver. Dumars describes Weaver as “the elite” when it comes to assessing young players.

It is not only at the top of the project. In 2008, when Weaver took place in its first season with Oklahoma City Thunder, they drafted Serge Ibaka with the overall choice n ° 24. Ibaka became a key article of the Thunder team which reached the NBA final in 2012. The Pélicans struck a choice of first round in the years 20 last season, in writing the Yves Missi Center at No. 21. Elected NBA All-Rookie Second Team.

The NBA project analyst Jay Bilas believes that there could be similar jewels in this class at n ° 23.

“It’s a fairly deep project,” said Bilas during Tuesday panel. “Once you have exceeded 8 or 9 years, there is a lot of reasonable disagreement.” I like it better or I like it better. There is a lot to love in these players.

“But how many times over the years have we had players outside the lottery who have turned into stars or really great players? It is sort of the humility of this process. You don’t know. You just have beliefs and try to bring together as much intelligence as possible.”

The prediction here is that the Pelicans take Maluach at n ° 7 and the goalkeeper of Florida Walter Clayton at n ° 23.

The advantage of these two players seems high, a bit like the increase seemed 40 years ago for a native of Natchitoches who played McNeese State before making his mark for the pistons.

Now, it’s up to this choice in the first round of the 1985 draft to make its brand in New Orleans.