Pelicans Aren't Doing Jeremiah Fears Any Favors With Questionable Approach

The New Orleans Pelicans are setting themselves and their talented rookie up for failure.

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The New Orleans Pelicans have a massive weakness at point guard. Dejounte Murray has yet to make his season debut, Jordan Poole has been a disaster since joining the team, and Jose Alvarado has already missed ten games and is currently out with an oblique strain. This leaves Jeremiah Fears as the only true point guard on the team. While he has shown intriguing flashes in his rookie campaign, he currently has too big a workload, and it's not doing him any favors.

One of the big, under-the-radar reasons for the Pelicans' struggles this season has been the play of Fears. The 19-year-old rookie has played in all 45 games for New Orleans, starting in 43 and averaging over 26 minutes. As one of the youngest players in the NBA, Fears has been struggling in every way one would expect a rookie point guard to struggle.

Pelicans Are Putting Too Much on Jeremiah Fears' Plate

Fears has been one of the most damaging defenders in the NBA. He currently doesn't have the size or the strength to stay in front of anyone and gets consistently taken advantage of. He has the worst on/off metrics of any rotation player on the Pelicans, with the team being 8.1 points per 100 possessions worse with him on the floor than off, per Cleaning the Glass. A significant portion of this comes on the defensive side of the ball, as the Pelicans are a league-worst 123.1 defensive rating when he is on the court.

In addition to his defense, Fears is only hitting 32.4% of his three-point attempts and turns the ball over 2.4 times per game. His usage rate of 24.8%, combined with his poor 51.8% True Shooting, puts a cap on the Pelicans' offensive ceiling. His inability to play off the ball due to his lack of shooting makes him a tough fit on a team that already has Derik Queen and Zion Williamson.

That is why head coach James Borrego elected to play him only ten minutes against the Rockets on Sunday, his lowest minutes total of the season. Whether this will be a trend going forward remains to be seen, but the Pelicans have to consider making changes to their Fears plan.

While it's essential to provide young players with studio space to explore, assigning them too significant a role and too many minutes without accountability isn't always beneficial. Fears has the third-highest usage rate and has played the second-most minutes on the team.

Borrego's desire to let him figure it out and build chemistry with the starters is understandable, but it's not helping Fears. Moving him to the bench would allow him to play against backups, where he can run the offense and get into a rhythm. His minutes can depend on how he plays or how he holds up defensively. Getting developmental minutes on a team that gets blown out when he is on the floor isn't doing him or the Pelicans any favors.