Pelicans Are Clear Losers of the Offseason

On one hand, the New Orleans Pelicans arguably deserve an incomplete grade for their offseason. They didn't do anything substantial. They are bringing back the same team from last season. It may seem hard to judge a team's offseason when they didn't do anything.

On the other hand, that is exactly why they should get a failing grade. It's not like the Pelicans had legitimate reasons to stand pat. The fact that the team that finished last season 26-56 is the only one in the league not to add a single new player to its roster is highly questionable.

Pelicans Will Almost Certainly Be Worse Next Year

Perhaps Joe Dumars and Troy Weaver have a trick up their sleeve that will surprise Pelicans fans, but no one in New Orleans will be holding their breath. The plan seemed like it was to keep this core together all along, and the front office is executing it.

Sure, there were rumblings about a draft-day move to acquire a first-round pick or a Trey Murphy trade, but for one reason or another, nothing came to fruition.

As things stand now, there is very little reason why the Pelicans should be better next year than they were last season. Jamahl Mosley could instill some defensive fundamentals and build an identity, but he is not a miracle worker. A team that has Derik Queen and Zion Williamson in the rotation and Yves Missi as its only center is never going to have a solid defense.

There will be some internal development, to be sure. Queen and Jeremiah Fears should be better in their second season. Williamson, Trey Murphy, Saddiq Bey, and Herb Jones are still young enough that they could take a step or two forward.

The problem is, even in the best-case scenario, this isn't a team worth keeping together.

The 26 games the Pelicans won last season overstate how good they were. At the trade deadline, they had the second-worst record in the league at 13-40. Once non-playoff teams stopped trying, the Pelicans were able to rack up some wins in the final third of the season.

That will not be the case this year. The league changed the lottery rules, disincentivizing intentionally losing. Almost every team will be trying to win games until the end, and every West team, except for the Sacramento Kings, took significant steps forward in the offseason.

Other lottery teams like Dallas, Memphis, and Utah have all upgraded their rosters this summer and project to be better than the Pelicans.

Moreover, it has gone under the radar how much injury luck the Pelicans actually had last year. Zion had one of the healthiest seasons of his career, playing 62 games. Other than Herb Jones, who missed 26 games, and Dejounte Murray, who started the season recovering from the Achilles rupture, no Pelican missed more than two weeks at a time.

So, the Pelicans don't even have the injury excuse anymore. They were bad last year because they had a poorly constructed roster that featured some of the worst point guard and center play in the league.

After seeing that last year, the Pelicans decided it was good enough for another season in a stacked Western Conference. In the NBA, with the changed lottery rules, standing pat meant getting worse, and that's how we need to evaluate the Pelicans' offseason.

Add us as a preferred source on Google