This week in 2016: Anthony Davis scores 50 on opening night, and the Pelicans still lose to the Nuggets

Anthony Davis scored 50 points in the New Orleans Pelicans‘ season opener on Wednesday, October 26, 2016, ten years ago this week, and it was not enough: the Denver Nuggets won 107-102 at the Smoothie King Center. It remains one of the most complete individual nights an opener has produced, and one of the clearest pictures of the problem that defined Davis’ years in New Orleans.

The line

Davis played 41 minutes and made 17 of his 34 shots and 16 of his 17 free throws. The official box score credits him with 15 rebounds, five assists, five steals and four blocked shots, and he did not attempt a three-pointer. Reports filed on the night counted 16 rebounds and seven steals before the final numbers settled.

He became the fourth player in league history to score 50 or more in a season opener, joining Michael Jordan, who did it twice, Wilt Chamberlain and Elgin Baylor. Only once before had he reached 50, with a 59-point, 20-rebound game in Detroit the previous February. He had not played a game that counted since March, when surgery on his left knee ended his 2015-16 campaign early.

How the night unfolded

Denver scored 30 points in each of the first two quarters and built a 14-point cushion before halftime. The Pelicans won the third quarter 29-25 and kept chipping at the gap behind Davis, getting within two points in the final minutes. With 24 seconds left, E’Twaun Moore missed a three-pointer that would have tied it, and the Nuggets closed it out at the line.

The support never came. Davis’ teammates shot 21 of 58 between them. Tim Frazier, starting at point guard, had 15 points, 11 assists and four steals, and Moore added 10. Buddy Hield, the sixth pick in that June’s draft, scored four on 2-of-8 shooting in his first NBA game. Jrue Holiday, the team’s second-best player, was away from the team on leave.

Denver won with balance. Jusuf Nurkic scored 23 on 9-of-13 shooting, Will Barton added 22, Danilo Gallinari had 15 and Kenneth Faried pulled down 14 rebounds. A 21-year-old Nikola Jokic started and scored five points in 21 minutes, and rookie Jamal Murray played 13 minutes in his debut. The Nuggets also turned the ball over 25 times and still won.

What it led to

The opener set the tone for Davis’ season: enormous numbers on a losing team. Four months later he scored a record 52 points in the All-Star Game, played that year in New Orleans, and the Pelicans traded for DeMarcus Cousins the same weekend to finally give him a star partner. New Orleans still missed the playoffs. The Cousins pairing reached the second round in 2018, but Cousins tore his Achilles that January, and in early 2019 Davis asked for a trade. He was dealt to the Los Angeles Lakers that summer and won the 2020 championship with LeBron James.

The Nuggets went the other way. Jokic and Murray, two quiet names in that 2016 box score, became the core of the team that won Denver’s first title in 2023. Looking back, the night is remembered for Davis’ 50, but the box score also held an early look at a champion.