The Pelicans don’t lift their heads. With a very short history and a very small market, the New Orleans franchise misses the mark and runs out of excuses. 1-10 start, bad feelings, a Zion Williamson missing and overweight And no hint of hope Since the Pelicans came to be called yes, back in 2013, abandoning the nomenclature of a Hornets that headed to Charlotte, they have played the playoffs twice and have only won a single round. In total, five victories in the finals in nine years, a number that is going to remain immovable in the present except … except for nothing. It is, in these moments, as unlikely as it is unthinkable to think that a team adrift it can soar and straighten something that has always been crooked, has never been accompanied by any kind of optimism and has been a constant structural and sporting excess.
This is the team’s ninth season under that nomenclature. In total, four coaches: Monty Williams, Alvin Gentry, Stan Van Gundy, and now Willie Green. No season above 50 wins, six negative records that will be seven at the end of this course, a sway that has not ceased in a loose dispatches, a star who headed to Los Angeles and not a single conference final, neither as Pelicans nor as Hornets. In fact, that sister team that is now in Charlotte is, together with them, the only one in history that has never stepped on that round. The Clippers, who completed the trio, did so last year. And he left both teams alone, who meet, yes, at radically different times.. Some, those of Michael Jordan, glimpse the light at the end of the tunnel. The others, the Pelicans, are in the competition well.
It is quite a complicated exercise to try to explain such a disaster clearly and concisely. On the one hand, it has already been tried to explain many times; on the other, there are few new things that can be told. But, in a desperate attempt to do so, going back to the source of the problem might be the best solution. And not so much to the creation of a young franchise, rather to the key transfer of that Anthony Davis with whom they thought they could get a lot, but they didn’t get that much. With that number 1 of the 2012 draft, they took over a recent Olympic champion with whom they have lived their best moments … which have been few, on the other hand. Actually, stick to that first round of 2018 against the Blazers, to which they alighted in four games with their star, Rajon Rondo, Jrue Holiday, E’Twaun Moore, Nikola Mirotic … A team that beat the Warriors in the third game of the Conference semifinals. And there it stayed.
Small market or poor management?
Terminology small market it has been a constant in the history of the NBA. Los Angeles and New York have always been the favorite cities for free agents, those that have a high dose of appeal for basketball and everything that surrounds it, for show business and paraphernalia, for those most concerned hobbies to seem than to be. At the Lakers, Jerry Buss, a brilliant mind, collected stars on the court by accumulating them in the stands in those famous 80s, creating a tradition that continues today. It is in those places where movie stars or the most famous public figures come to stay, to appear on television, to be protagonists, sometimes, of that kiss cam that is part of the show and greet or applaud rival stars or coaches if they please, as one who has an aura superior to the rest and is capable of rubbing shoulders with basketball greatness by having achieved the same in another field.
Behind those cities there are all kinds of markets. The middle ones (Boston, Chicago …) and a very large horde of those that nobody wants to go to. Oklahoma, Charlotte, Memphis or, of course, New Orleans, are just some of them. Cities that lack appeal for top free agents and whose franchises are forced to build from the bottomFrom the draft, paying excessive salaries to players who do not deserve it as much and looking at the long term, since the immediate future is usually sordid and dark. And compete in a short time against top-level teams, a chimera. And that’s what the Pelicans have tried, first with Davis and then with Zion: build from the draft, push the project forward with the transfer of their great star, and collect a horde of young talents to make the final leap and fight for something greater than , simply, to be every year in the no man’s land of a competition that does not wait for anyone. Neither to the big markets, nor to the small ones.
The problem, however, is not just the fault of the type of market in which the Pelicans operate. In June 2019, Davis was traded to the Lakers in exchange for Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, Josh Hart and three first-round draft picks, including that year’s number four. The transfer was accompanied by an eternal sainete that lasted several months, with Davis displaying player empowerment and refusing to play while demanding to reach that large market that many stars seek. The center He played 56 games that year, with 25.9 points, 12 rebounds, almost 4 assists and more than 2 blocks on average, in addition to 1.6 steals. Never have the Pelicans had anyone like this. The issue was resolved with the dismissal of Dell Demps on the one hand and the departure of Magic Johnson on the other.. Rob Pelinka and David Griffin resolved the situation. Well, the Lakers did, who a year later won the ring. The Pelicans already, maybe …
Today’s problems
Now, the crisis is total in the Pelicans. Griffin fired Alvin Gentry after a 30-win coronavirus season. Stan Van Gundy arrived, an old school coach who blew up Zion on the individual level (27 + 7.2 + 3.7 and All Star), but who stayed in 31 games won, making his time through that NBA that he fell in love with when he was in the Magic of Dwight Howard ephemeral. And the arrival of a stranger like Willie Green has not solved the problems of an aimless group, who do not believe in any discourse and who seem to wander the court instead of playing basketball. The franchise was forced to pay 158 million in 5 years to Ingram after its All Star year (23.8 points per match) and could not do the same with a talented Lonzo Ball but always on the verge of an explosion that does not arrive and that he said goodbye without being traded in February (he had finished his contract and was in many conversations) to win more money and more games for the Bulls.
And then there is Zion. The star has come overweight to a preseason that has been spent, like the beginning of the course, in the dry dock. A classic for a player with constant physical problems and who has to bear many kilos on his legs. Their habits are questionable and so are their attitude, while the secrecy about what happens to them is total and not even within the dynamics of the team are they able to discern how to treat their franchise player. Or that is the wish, at least, of David Griffin, who after many excesses with LeBron James in Ohio wanted to show off a capacity that is not so great and is not capable, at the moment, Neither dealing with Zion, nor surrounding him properly, nor finding the perfect coach for a project that it is neither a project nor does it seem to beor. And, among all that, that famous environment that is so important today (or more) than the player himself, filters problems to the press and places his player in New York. Or as far from New Orleans as possible. It does not matter.
Right now, the Pelicans without Zion are the sixth-fourth defense in the NBA and the third worst attack, the fourth worst in field goals, the second worst in shots of two, the third that loses the most balls and the second worst. net rating. And they have the worst record (1-10), of course. Ingram is at 25 points a game, but he needs a ball he lost last year to Zion and will give up again when he returns. And Valanciunas, transfers through, has the role of playing one great game after another (he is at 19 + 14). A bit of Josh Hart, a bit of Nickeil Alexander-Walker, a bit of Devonte ‘Graham … but all in all, a sheer lack of sync and a constant mess that Zion or anyone else doesn’t fix. And, in that polyhedral NBA immersed in the era of empowered players, either you soon make your star happy or you run out of it.. The Pelicans, who have already experienced this situation with Davis, are facing a similar situation with Zion. And all, in the midst of a tidal wave of defeats that has relegated them to the ostracism of the competition. The Pelicans, adrift: neither present, nor past, nor future.
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