Pelicans Can't Afford to Make the Same Mistake of Past Offseasons

The New Orleans Pelicans are seemingly bringing back the same core for next season. Lead decision-maker Joe Dumars announced after the season that he believes the Pelicans are not too far from winning and have no intention of trading franchise star Zion Williamson.

That is obviously frustrating to hear for Pelicans fans, who desperately want to see a coherent vision from the franchise rather than continuing to do the same thing and expecting different results.

If the Pelicans are indeed doubling down on this current core, at the very least, they can't keep making the same roster-building mistakes.

Pelicans Can No Longer Ignore Shooting in the Offseason

Near the top of the list of mistakes is ignoring shooting. The Pelicans have been one of the worst shooting teams in the league throughout the Zion Williamson era. Per Cleaning the Glass, the Pelicans had a bottom-eight three-point attempt rate in each of the past six seasons. In five of these seasons, they were a bottom-five team in that metric.

Things aren't much better on the accuracy front. The Pelicans shot 35% or below from downtown in four of the last six seasons. They were in the bottom six of the league in three-point percentage in each of those seasons.

It's not a coincidence that the only two seasons (2022-23 and 2023-24) the Pelicans shot an above-average mark from three were their only two campaigns with a winning record.

While their center need understandably received most of the attention heading into the offseason, the Pelicans can't ignore their shooting woes. This is especially important with Zion Williamson on the roster.

It has been well-documented that Williamson needs shooting around him to be at his best. He hasn't been able to develop an outside shot, so for him to be effective, he has to operate in space. Yet, the Pelicans have largely not been able to surround him with sufficient shooting throughout his career.

This will be further exacerbated with Derik Queen on the roster. That is another big man who doesn't space the floor. Add in another defensive center who will likely be a non-shooter as well, and the Pelicans quickly become a shooting-challenged team once again.

Among their nine players who played the most minutes in the rotation last season, the Pelicans had only one player who shot above the league average of 37% from downtown. That was Trey Murphy, who hit 37.9%. He was the only Pelican to strike fear into opposing defenses with his off-ball gravity and shooting threat.

That has to change. The Pelicans can no longer look to add on-ball shot creators like Jordan Poole or Dejounte Murray to pair with Williamson. They need shooters who can thrive off the ball, even if they can do little else on the court. That has to be one of the top priorities this offseason.

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