SR – NBA Bubble Breakdowns: #16 New Orleans Pelicans

We’re making quick strides on getting through this countdown, and since we’re officially at 16 days until the official NBA restart, let’s not make haste and talk about the next team on this list: the resilient New Orleans Pelicans.

How better could the scenario of Orlando get for a young, adaptive Pels team? They’re healthy down the board, perhaps have the easiest schedule among non-playoff qualifying teams, and have the phenom Zion Williamson to lead the charge. What could go wrong?

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

 New Orleans’ Season In Review (28-36, 10th In West)

A season that never really got out of the blocks with all issues pertaining to injury woes now turns into a plausible campaign that can boost this Pelicans team into playoff positioning with an extremely favorable schedule.

Call it what you will: a conspiracy of the NBA playing the favoritism game prioritizing Williamson’s skills and the Pelicans’ potential to ease them into the playoffs. Or how about a plan laid by current General Manager David Griffin going as scheduled in the first year of the post-Anthony Davis era.

Nawlins’ team is finally finding its way in an uber-competitive Western Conference and just before the hiatus, they had racked up eight wins in a span of 13 games, looking more and more fearsome the more they play with one another. Now, with an opportunity to capitalize on that momentum built up during the regular season, this Alvin Gentry coached team overflowing with potential now has the golden opportunity to snatch the eighth seed from the Memphis Grizzlies.

And it wasn’t just the delay of Williamson’s debut that slowed the team’s start for this season, but missed time from the likes of Jrue Holiday, Brandon Ingram, JJ Redick, and Lonzo Ball garnered some difficulty in getting some crucial wins for a team that’s needed them down the final stretches of the season. The starting lineup of Ball-Holiday-Hart-Ingram-Favors looked like how any transitional rebounding team would look: talent-deficient, defensively inefficient, and still learning how to play with one another with only a quarter of a season under their belt.

And yet, this new Pels team, pieced together as a result of the eye-opening trade that sent Anthony Davis to the Los Angeles Lakers in exchange for Josh Hart, Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball, and the Lakers’ first-round pick, was able to squeeze out a total of 17 wins. That number would drastically improve after the debut of rookie sensation Zion Williamson, who in his debut against the San Antonio Spurs on January 22 scored 21 points off the bench in a minutes restriction, and scored 17 straight points in one of the most electric starts to a professional career that you will ever see.

And then the Zion onslaught on the entire NBA began. In just the duration of a few weeks and 19 games, this lowly Pelicans team, predetermined to meet another fate of another lottery pick year, has made even the highest of teams on the league’s totem pole shake in their shoes. They’re on the Grizzlies’ heels, only 3 1/2 games behind them and with the way Williamson has been playing, you’d like to think it’s only a matter of time until the Pelicans completely catch up to the rest of the qualifying eight in the Western playoff chart.

Averaging a monstrous 25.9 points off 61 percent shooting, the 19-turned-20-year-old has proven himself to be an intimidating finisher at the rim with poised body control and an elite, soft touch within 3 feet. The lefty’s game is a blend of the modernization of the NBA big and the past eras of forwards in the league: A swift and powerful slasher who focuses not only on in-paint footwork but utilizes his strength of outside shooting every now and then to stretch the floor.

Conversely, this Pels team has rallied around their rookie sensation, as the numbers from their integral parts have vastly improved. There was a time not too long ago when we all thought Lonzo Ball to have the league’s most horrendous jumper, inefficient as it was aesthetically unpleasant. In the period of New Orleans’ 19 games with Williamson on the floor, Zo upped his assist numbers with his new Pick and Roll partner, and got hot in the past 13 games, shooting 46.2 percent from deep with 14.2 points per game to add to that impressive statistic.

But arguably the most impressive player on this Pels team has to be their unsung hero and lone All-Star, Brandon Ingram. He may not garner much attention from the national media, since it looks like Zion is hogging that up, but the former Laker that’s found new pastures in less-pressurized environment like New Orleans has proven that he is a force to be reckoned with out on the wing. In what will probably be a Kia Most Improved Player award year that will launch Ingram into the next level of superstardom, the Duke standout has played the best ball of his career, averaging 24.3 points, 6.3 rebounds and 4.3 assists.

Additionally, Ingram’s confidence is glowing, evident in his willingness to want to isolate more and get buckets on his own. Shooting 38.7 percent on three balls on for a combined field goal percentage of 46.7 percent has made Ingram the true No. 1 scoring option for New Orleans. Inconsistency was the biggest curse against the former No. 2 overall pick in 2016, but he’s adjusted in a new atmosphere where he can allow his game to grow gradually without the pressure of being the do-it-all wing scorer in a large market like LA.

Some key wins in the season for this young, impressionable team weren’t just capped off by the thrilling opening to an NBA career for Zion on January 22. The Pels beat down the Memphis Grizzlies 139-111 in a statement win that tightened the Rookie of the Year race between former AAU teammates Williamson and Grizzlies guard Ja Morant, while also letting the Grizzlies know the Pelicans were not to be toyed with.

Some other wins that the Pelicans had this year:

Brandon Ingram scoring a career-high 49 points in a New Orleans win over Utah that snapped a 10-game win streak by the Jazz, in what was a retribution over Ingram missing a game-winning layup as a result of a missed call when Jazz center Rudy Gobert fouled him at the buzzer of their last matchup.

Or the win against the Denver Nuggets on Christmas where, before they even had Zion suit up in uniform as the rookie was healing up from a meniscus tear, the 8-23 Pelicans managed to defeat the #2 seeded Denver Nuggets 112-100, which served as a motivator for a young Pelicans team still without their best player.

There have been a large sum of memorable moments for a Pelicans team that has accomplished so much in such a short amount of time. Throughout the year, many speculated that they were going to lie down and continue to restock for the future, but now that they’re only five games from making it to .500, those speculations are out of the window as playoff visit aspirations now make their way through the doorstep.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

New Orleans’ Roster For Season Resumption: The scheme and schedule is set for this pelicans team to perform, and execute they must.

To put it bluntly…It will be the Pelicans’ own doing that screws up their chances of making the playoffs with such a favorable outlook on their trip to Orlando. They have all the pieces. They have the perfect, spaceous scheme set in stone. And they have arguably the most prolific rookie to grace a floor since LeBron in 2003. It will be really difficult to mess this up, especially when, as a team, don’t have to worry about major injury to not a single member of their players.

The decision of Alvin Gentry’s status is up in the air, in relation to the health risk of traveling to the Orlando bubble in the wake of the rising cases of COVID-19 in Florida, but if all is well for the Pelicans head coach, expect a full-strength organization to potentially blow the roof off of the Orlando bubble on their way to qualifying for the eighth seed.

In the starting lineup, expect to see the starting five of Lonzo Ball, Zion Williamson, Jrue Holiday, Brandon Ingram and Derrick Favors to be rolled out for a majority of their games during the restart. As the starting guard, Lonzo Ball (12.4 ppg., 6.2 rpg., 7 apg., 1.4 spg.) has been selected as the main guy to run Gentry’s offense as a pass-first perimeter scorer and occasional slasher. In such a spaced-out floor awash with wings who can all create off the dribble, he’ll be assisted by his backcourt companion Jrue Holiday (19.6 ppg., 4.9 rpg., 6.9 apg., 1.7 spg.), who you could make the case as their best on-ball defender.

Though he is usually assigned plays ran for him at the two position, he can occasionally direct the offense at the point as well. His natural shot-creating ability has been a skill coveted by the Pelicans during the Anthony Davis days, and he’s seamlessly meshed into this new-look Pels team with his assets coming into the benefit of this young team with his play and veteran leadership.

Alongside Zo and Jrue will be team MVP Brandon Ingram (24.2 ppg., 6.2 rpg., 4.3 apg.) who is easily the purest shot creator on the team. Once things break down, or whenever the Pelicans go 5-out, Gentry will likely give the stretch forward his space to take defenders one-on-one to either make his own shot from deep, within the mid-range or at the rim, where his attempts are likely to be finished at with his 6’7 frame.

Williamson is another threat to set screens and roll, slash, collapse the defense and find shooters around the arc. When the Pels’ halfcourt defense gets stops and steals, there’s very little in this world that can stop the unstoppable force that is a churning Williamson when he gets within five feet of the paint. Which is frightening, of course.

And lastly in the starting lineup lies Derrick Favors, the former big for the Utah Jazz who turned out to be an efficient piece for New Orleans this season. Averaging a little over nine points, 9.9 rebounds, 1.7 assists, and one block per game, he’s slid into the center position with efficacy, utilizing the role as an active roll man, defensive anchor, energetic rebounder and break starter.

The Pelicans’ second and third units will play a huge role in determining how many wins they will get in Orlando. Starting off with backup shooting guard and top-tier marksman JJ Redick (14.9 ppg., 2.6 rpg., 2 apg., 45.2 3PT%), hasn’t missed the playoffs once in his caree and his role focuses on being the integral catch-and-shoot perimeter sniper we know him to be.

Accompanying him in the backcourt will be Josh Hart (10.2 ppg., 6.5 rpg., 1.6 apg.), another Laker export who can both run the 1 and 2 as a primary ball handler, corner shooter and pick and roll defender. That same backcourt can go three deep, with guards Frank Jackson (5.6 ppg., 1.4 rpg., 0.8 apg.) and Nickeil Alexander-Walker (5.1 ppg., 0.2 rpg., 2 apg.) running the same responsibilites.

For the reserves in the frontcourt, Italian shooter Niccolo Melli (6.8 ppg., 3 rpg., 1.3 apg.) will be at the power forward spot to be a perimeter lockdown man and scorer from deep. Behind him will be Kenrich Williams (3.8 ppg., 5.1 rpg., 1.5 apg.), who may not be as an efficient scorer from deep but bolsters their rim protection efforts with his 0.6 blocks per game off the bench. It’s clear that Alvin Gentry formulated this roster to be filled to the brim with shooters, as his other forward in E’Twuan Moore (8.6 ppg., 2.4 rpg., 1.4 apg.) is known for his spot-up shooting abilities.

That second unit will also contain rookie center Jaxson Hayes (7.5 ppg., 4 rpg., 0.9 apg.) out of Texas, New Orleans’ second first-round pick who has been the source of energy off the bench as a lanky defender who can guard three to four positions, lengthy shot blocker and roll man.

Likely to split minutes with him will be another Duke standout on this Pelicans team. Former first-round pick Jahlil Okafor (7.6 ppg., 4.2 rpg., 1.3 apg.), who is experiencing a second wind for his career, has proven himself capable of defending guards on the perimeter as well as useful under the basket as a low-post scorer.

Again, the roster is all here, and the schematics are all set for this Pelicans team to succeed with an easy schedule. Now, they just have to get the job done in this abridged season.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

New Orleans’ Schedule, At A Glance

The conspiracy theorists are all out and about talking about how easy the Pelicans have it during this eight-game schedule. And, though a lot of prognosticators make gripping points, the games still have to be won by the Pelicans at the end of the day. But as favorable as the Pelicans’ schedule is, they might be right.

Barring their battle against the Clippers, this schedule can all but certainly land the Pelicans in the postseason. Starting out with a game against the Utah Jazz and their shaky defensive gameplan, Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram look to do damage against a team that, if they do qualify for the eighth seed, could likely see them at some point in the playoffs.

A battle with Kawhi Leonard’s Clippers is next, which in reality could be a toss-up considering how well the two teams match-up with one another. After that game will be the final matchup between the Pelicans and Memphis Grizzlies takes place, as Ja Morant and Zion Williamson have the bragging rights of ending the Rookie of the Year award debate on the line. They’ll finish their first-half of the season with a game against another team gunning for the eighth seed in the Sacramento Kings.

The final half of their season starts against an undermanned Washington Wizards team that is still gritty enough to force a close game against them and soon after that, Zion gets his final rematch of the year against those San Antonio Spurs he debuted against. They get one more shot at the Kings after that before ending their seeding schedule against the host Orlando Magic.

The NBA set it up for Zion’s Pelicans to wreak havoc on the war path toward the eighth seed, but like the other 21 teams in the bubble, there are no wins on paper. It’s more than doable for this team coached by Alvin Gentry, but execution and sticking to to the task at hand will ultimately be the answer to whether or not the Pelicans get back to the postseason for the first time since 2017.