Elfrid Payton will miss extended time, and Anthony Davis' margin of error is even slimmer

Senior writer

Mon, 19 Nov 2018, 1:57 pm

New Orleans Pelicans point guard Elfrid Payton is expected to miss six more weeks with a broken finger. (Getty Images)

What began as a dream season for Elfrid Payton is now the stuff of nightmares, as the New Orleans Pelicans point guard will miss six more weeks, this time due to the left pinkie finger he broke in a win over the New York Knicks on Friday. The team announced the timeline following a surgery on Monday.

Returning to his hometown of New Orleans on a one-year, $3 million deal after four seasons on the Orlando Magic and Phoenix Suns — neither of whom were willing to match his salary in restricted free agency — the 24-year-old former lottery pick submitted a triple-double against the Houston Rockets in his Pelicans debut. He averaged 14.5 points, seven assists and seven rebounds through his first four games (all wins), before spraining his left ankle 16 minutes into a loss to the Utah Jazz on Oct. 27.

Payton returned from the ankle injury to start Friday’s game against the Knicks, only to break his finger eight minutes into the opening quarter. The Pelicans were 3-6 in his previous absence, falling out of the early season playoff picture. They won Saturday’s game against the Denver Nuggets to improve to 9-7 this season, within 1.5 games of both the third and 13th seeds in the crowded West.

In his absence, the Pelicans will move Jrue Holiday away from the position in which he’s been most comfortable and into the starting point guard position and rely on a hodgepodge of wings — namely Wesley Johnson, Ian Clark and Darius Miller — to fill Holiday’s off-ball minutes. Journeyman Tim Frazier is now the primary backup point guard on a team that boasts Anthony Davis in an MVP-caliber season.

And there’s the worst part of Payton’s injury. Davis has been increasingly frank about his future in New Orleans, openly discussing his own superstardom in the context of a team being capable of building a contender around him. Thus far, the Pelicans have been unable to surround Davis with a consistent winner, whether by front-office failures or a series of unfortunate injuries, and Payton appeared to be the rare positive free-agent find — a young talent capable of growing with and creating for Davis.

You could almost hear the disappointment in Davis’ voice when the injury bug bit his team again.

“Since I’ve been here, it’s always something,” Davis said after Payton broke his finger in Friday’s game, via the Associated Press. “He just got back off an injury. You know, he was eager to get back, and then this happens. Hopefully it doesn’t sideline him for too long, and I hope he gets healthy soon.”

Six weeks may not be soon enough in a conference where 13 teams are currently battling for eight playoff spots and the stakes for every game are higher. The Pelicans were three points per 100 possessions better in the 152 minutes that Payton was on the court than they have been in the 616 minutes he has been sidelined. They’re also 5.4 points per 100 possessions better with Holiday playing off ball this season than with him at point guard, according to Cleaning the Glass. These are no small margins for a team that is outscoring opponents by 1.8 points per 100 possessions on the season.

Should Payton’s injury result in a handful more losses, there’s a very real chance the Pelicans are one more lottery-bound season closer to Davis’ 2021 free agency, in which case this six-week absence for a 24-year-old on his third team in five seasons is even more frightening than we might have thought.

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Ben Rohrbach is a staff writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at rohrbach_ben@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @brohrbach