{"id":15748,"date":"2018-07-01T22:00:12","date_gmt":"2018-07-02T02:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonnba.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=15748"},"modified":"2018-07-01T23:07:03","modified_gmt":"2018-07-02T03:07:03","slug":"elfrid-payton-agrees-new-orleans-pelicans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2018\/07\/01\/elfrid-payton-agrees-new-orleans-pelicans\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Elfrid Payton Agrees to Contract With New Orleans Pelicans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\" UFICommentActorAndBody\"><span class=\"UFICommentBody _1n4g\">24-year-old point guard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/p\/paytoel01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Elfrid Payton<\/a> has agreed to a one-year deal with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprobasketball.com\/nba-teams\/new-orleans-pelicans\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New Orleans Pelicans<\/a>. In the latter part of the 2017-18 season, Payton got traded to the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprobasketball.com\/nba-teams\/phoenix-suns\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Phoenix Suns<\/a> from his original team, the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonprobasketball.com\/nba-teams\/orlando-magic\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Orlando Magic<\/a>. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN broke the news on Sunday night:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Payton will sign a one-year deal with Pelicans, a return to his hometown. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/2UWOKSCLBK\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/2UWOKSCLBK<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/wojespn\/status\/1013617155177418752?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 2, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h1>Report: Elfrid Payton Agrees to Contract with New Orleans Pelicans<\/h1>\n<p>Payton&#8217;s contract will take him through the end of the 2018-19 season.<\/p>\n<p>Payton was drafted by the Magic with the 10th overall pick in the 2014 NBA Draft. In his rookie season he averaged 9 points, 4 rebounds, 7 assists and 2 steals a game. Some dubbed him as the possible point guard of the future for Orlando at the time.<\/p>\n<p>He steadily improved through the years and was averaging a career-high 13 PPG last season before he got traded to the Suns for a second round pick in this year&#8217;s draft. Early on in his time with the Suns, he put up two triple-doubles in his first nine games.<\/p>\n<p>While Payton has shown potential as a point guard, especially with his passing and rebounding abilities, many still question his shooting touch. Throughout his career, he is shooting 45% from the field, but only 30% from deep and 62% from the foul line. This affects his long-term viability as a starting point guard for any lineup. That being said, he can still be an effective sixth man or role player off the bench. He is definitely a capable ball-handler and point guard. The Pelicans will definitely expect this from him, giving him this one-year deal.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: Roboto,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/511901964\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 65.48821% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/511901964?et=OCXCPdZOSfhUhytOth8jwQ&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=0ISGISyE648Yjn3w0I8-SEu_tJjciHmvfFH2yV4n31c=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" width=\"594\" height=\"389\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Elfrid Payton will return to his hometown and sign a one-year deal with the New Orleans Pelicans. He was recently with the Phoenix Suns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2540,"featured_media":16078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,62,3,28],"tags":[65,475,96,297,202,280],"class_list":["post-15748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-nba","category-news","category-suns","tag-basketball","tag-elfrid-payton","tag-nba","tag-nba-free-agency","tag-nba-news","tag-phoenix-suns"],"modified_by":"Matthew Cardenas","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2540"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}