New Orleans Pelicans under new coach Alvin Gentry are going to play fast. A very fast pace, moving up and down the court. With a guy like Anthony Davis, who recently re-signed for a very long time, and newly signed nimble big man Alexis Ajinca, it all but appeared that the Pelicans were content with their frontline.
They could let Omer Asik walk, especially with his potential salary cap number going into the eight figure range but it appears that his talent was too much to pass up for New Orleans.
Following from Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports.
Omer Asik is finalizing a five-year, $60M deal to return to the New Orleans Pelicans, league sources tell Yahoo Sports.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) July 2, 2015
Asik’s fit with the Pelicans is a strange one. It doesn’t appear to work out at all but it does appear that New Orleans is reluctant to let him walk. They now have three bigs in Davis, Asik and Ajinca locked in for relatively long deals so their front court depth is set.
Now with the Pelicans essentially all locked up, it’s time to build around Anthony Davis to possibly be a title contender in the future with the best player in the world.