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Like sands through the hourglass, these are the days of the post-star-and-significant-role-player-signing-period of NBA free agency. Let's continue our consideration of the smaller deals getting worked out in the league, beginning with a trip to the Big Easy. *** • The New Orleans Pelicans added three perimeter players to fill out their wing rotation, agreeing to terms with free agents Jimmer Fredette and John Salmons, and bringing back Darius Miller. Fredette, the 25-year-old former BYU superstar and No. 10 pick in the 2011 NBA draft, will receive a one-year deal for the veteran's minimum of $981,084 , according to ESPN.com's Marc Stein . Salmons, 34, will earn $2 million on a one-year deal to join his sixth team in 13 NBA seasons, according to Chris Haynes of CSNNW.com . Terms of Miller's deal were not disclosed, according to Brett Martel of The Associated Press ; as John Reid of the New Orleans Times-Picayune notes , the Pelicans declined to extend a $1.15 million qualifying offer to the 24-year-old Miller, whom New Orleans selected in the second round of the 2012 draft, making it likely (as Dan Feldman of ProBasketballTalk surmised ) that Miller got a minimum deal of $915,243). While the Pelicans ranked sixth in the NBA in 3-point accuracy last season, knocking down 37.3 percent of their triples as a team, they ranked second-to-last in the league in makes and attempts per game. Whether you attribute this lack of long-distance proficiency more to head coach Monty Williams' offense, which has ranked in the bottom half of the league in long balls taken and drained in each of his four seasons on the bench, or to the horrendous plague of injuries that excised three of the Pelicans' top four 3-point shooters (Ryan Anderson, Eric Gordon and Jrue Holiday) from the lineup for significant stretches, the fact remains that New Orleans desperately needed floor spacing and shot-making ... and that was before their top beyond-the-arc marksman, Anthony Morrow, skipped town for a new three-year deal with the Oklahoma City Thunder.
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