Anthony Davis, Jrue Holiday and Nikola Mirotic are statistically all having good starts to the 2018-19 season for the New Orleans Pelicans. But where does that rank them amongst the NBA’s best trios?
Pretty high, according to Nylon Calculus' Sebastian Pycior.
Inspired by a FiveThirtyEight article about the success of the New Orleans Saints’ trio of Drew Brees, Alvin Kamara and Michael Thomas, Pycior set out to figure out the best trios in the NBA using approximate value.
The stats site NBAstuffer defines approximate value as “the metric which is an estimate of a player’s value, making no fine distinctions, but, rather, distinguishing easily between very good seasons, average seasons, and poor seasons.”
In short, it’s a way to compare seasons over different periods.
Pycior took the approximate values from the three highest-producing players on a team and then calculated the harmonic mean of the three. He projected the values out across an 82-game season.
There was no surprise that the No. 1 spot was going to Golden State. Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant and Draymond Green (not Klay Thompson) lead the way.
But the Pelicans’ trio of Davis, Holiday and Mirotic came in second just ahead of teams like Toronto (Kawhi Leonard, Kyle Lowry, Serge Ibaka), Houston (James Harden, Chris Paul, Clint Capela) and Oklahoma City (Russell Westbrook, Paul George and Steven Adams).
Davis is averaging 24.1 points, 12.1 rebounds, 4.8 assists, 3.1 blocks and 1.6 steals per game. Holiday is putting up 18.8 points per night and ranks second in the NBA with 8.8 assists per game.
Mirotic is in the top 25 in the NBA in both scoring (20.6 ppg) and rebounding (11.7).
