-
Coach Willie Green is the Pelicans’ best asset and he needs to be given patience and time
It’s Saturday night and I’m watching the New Orleans Pelicans cut a New York Knicks lead down to five while a fierce battle happens in the fourth quarter on a night Brandon Ingram and Zion Williamson are not playing. Second-round pick out of Alabama Herb Jones is harassing Julius Randle, Kira Lewis Jr. is running […]
-
Patience is paying off for the Pelicans
It remains to be seen if consistency will be sustainable for the rest of the season but the ability to practice patience and not panic is the key to the most recent stretch of success for the New Orleans Pelicans as they have won 5 of their last seven games. It was hard for Pels […]
-
DON’T OVERTHINK: ZION IS GENERATIONAL
Zion Williamson, the high school mega-star, the Duke phenom who took the NCAA by storm, or some know him as Zion Williamson, the guy compared to Charles Barkley and LeBron James. No doubt about it, Zion came into the NBA as one of the most hyped prospects of all-time. The other-worldly athleticism to go along […]
-
Previewing Pelicans: A quick look at a quick offseason
With a shortened offseason followed by an abbreviated but successful preseason, the young core of the New Orleans Pelicans have turned some heads and raised some eyebrows before the team tips off against the Toronto Raptors on the road to open the regular season on Wednesday. The Pelicans looked like one of the better teams […]
-
Quick thoughts: Looking back and forward for the Pelicans
Believe it or not, I gave a shit when the NBA bubble restarted play for the New Orleans Pelicans. I wanted the eighth seed. I wanted Zion Williamson to steal the show. I wanted Lonzo Ball to dish out like he was John Stockton. I wanted the Pelicans to exhaust teams with their fast pace […]
-
Kiss my ass, COVID-19. It’s Pelicans Day
This year has sucked. I don’t need to recap 2020 to make my point. You already know everything about it. I’m tired. You’re tired. We’re all tired. What I did not expect to happen in the middle of all this shit is actually meaningful professional sports games being able to take place. There are zero […]
-
Marching through March
The New Orleans Pelicans sit at 28-36 with 18 games to play. In years past, the fan base would be eyeing the draft hard and decrying losses. This season, however, the 8th seed in the West is competitive, looking like a sub-0.500 team may make it into the Playoffs. Let’s take a look at the […]
-
Living at the Deadline
Update: Now that we know the Pelicans did not get involved in a trade, keep in mind that the Pelicans can use the DPE ($3.625m) to make a waiver claim on a player in the last season of his deal. They can waive someone to make room. Frank may be the prime candidate there, but […]
-
The Two Step
Apparently, “Let’s Dance!” is referring to a two-step. The return of Zion Williams has been, overall, what I expected. He’s showing quickly that the hype is justified, and that Zion is certainly a talent to watch as one that might be the best player in the NBA one day. I certainly need to see what […]
-
How to Sustain This?
The New Orleans Pelican enter the Zion era at 17-27, winning 11 of their last 16. Those 11 games were not against chumps, and some were key games against teams battling the the 8th seed. I’ve used the specific term “unsustainable” to describe some of the performances of the Pelicans in this stretch. While this […]
-
It’s Time
The New Orleans Pelicans enter the last third of January at 16-27, 12th in the West, and just 0.5 game ahead of the tie at 13th and 14th. The next couple of weeks is not a normal couple of weeks, however. Rather, it is full of interacting uncharacteristically important events, each with the potential disproportionately […]
-
Cutting the Pelicans’ Tether
The New Orleans Pelicans sit at 14th in the West at 13-25 with their next three games are all on the road. The midpoint of the season and the likely debut of Zion provide a good time to take stock. We will be inundated with these these takes soon, but I wanted to take an […]
-
Looking Up to the Bottom
The New Orleans Pelicans enter 2020 at 11-23. This is not good. Still, with more than half the season left to play, the Playoffs are not beyond discussion because of the way the bottom half of the West currently sits. Last season, the Clippers held the 8th seed in the West with 48 wins, while […]
-
The Coaching Move
The New Orleans Pelicans were set to start this season in disarray, gather themselves, and fight for the eighth seed. Instead, the disarray was compounded by being short-handed, and the amount of youth has led to a performance a little north of the worst in the NBA, but not more north. At some point, it […]
-
Take a Bow
It’s been around eight months since the New Orleans Pelicans hired David Griffin to be the Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations. His hiring was part of a major transformation of the franchise than included restructuring Basketball Operations, trading Anthony Davis, filling out the roster for this season and beyond including the draft of Zion […]
-
An Eye Test Evaluation After a Handful of Games – Part 1
Stats are all the rage these days, but this old man uses his eyes first, second, and third before even bothering to check out basketball reference. It is not that I do not see value in stats; Quite the contrary actually. I just don’t think stats have evolved enough yet to tell us a story. […]
-
The Promise of Zion: Summer League Provided Brief Glimpse of Elite Skill
Fans were only treated to a brief glimpse of Zion Williamson as an NBA player now that he has been ruled out for the remainder of NBA Summer League action in Las Vegas, but Friday night was the Hollywood trailer we’ve all been waiting for. Williamson was impressively efficient, producing 11 points in 9 minutes […]
-
The Real Big Baller
There’s a Big Baller in New Orleans, ladies and gents, and he isn’t going anywhere. No, this isn’t going to be a puff piece on Lonzo Ball, apologies to my Westbank Laker fans. No, I’m not going to say that Zo is “actually better than you think when you look at these advanced stats”, or […]
-
Chaos A.D.: Draft Night
The New Orleans Pelicans came out of draft night with the franchise cornerstone, cleaner books, and assets. The path David Griffin, Trajan Langdon, and Bensonia envisioned is becoming clearer to us all. The result of draft night is summarized below along with the current assets. As it stands, the Pelicans will go forward with Jrue […]
-
Why the gamble to wait on trading Anthony Davis paid off
The bet the Pelicans made in February The decision the Pelicans made in February, the one where they decided to postpone dealing a discontented Anthony Davis until the summer paid off. Yes, the Pelicans ended up trading Davis to the Los Angeles Lakers anyway. Yes, Danny Ainge’s advice to hold off on dealing Davis because […]