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Roster - New Orleans Pelicans

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Reveiw And Beyond

Season record.
After an expected but devastating loss to the Denver Nuggets in the play in game, the New Orleans Pelicans season has come to an end.
Coming off the 2020 season, with a record of 16 and 66, the Pelicans had the worst record in the league and expectations were low for this Pelicans franchise.
After a number of trades that will be mentioned later on and a healthy John Wall, the Pelicans once sat inside the top four of the Western Conference before the front office decided this is not the year for them, finishing the year with just 25 wins and 47 losses.



Hindsight Trades
The Pelicans were fairly active this season on the trade front, making a number of moves but there were 3 major trades that will be highlighted and they believe their team is better as a result.
Before the games even began, a reveiw was conducted on the New Orleans Pelicans player list and even though the list was young, was it promising enough to develop into anything? One of the best big men in the league became available in Nikola Vucevic and a trade was struck. The Dallas Mavericks sends Nikola Vucevic and Robert Covington to New Orleans and the Pelicans send Otto Porter, Marvin Bagley and Nickeil Alexander Walker to Dallas. Even though its only one season down the road, is anyone still holding Marvin Bagley stock? Yes, the New Orleans first round pick for the 2022 season was a part of the deal but this is a star led league and with New Orleans not being a destination club in free agency because of the record and the GM point situation, we still think this trade favours the Pelicans.

Around week 10, the Pelicans were sitting around .500 and news came out the John Wall might need to have his knee cleaned out at some point this season. With that news, it was decided to look towards the 2022 season and the future. In a four team trade, Nikola Vucevic and DJ Augustin were moved to Detroit in exchange for the injured sharp shooter Klay Thompson and a 2021 first round selection. There is no doubt that Vuc is a star but to get a star back and a first round pick as well, it was too good to resist. The jury is out whether Klay will be back to his old self next season after two years on the sidelines but even if he comes back and is 80 percent of the player he was, that is still a very leathal weapon.

The last trade that will be highlighted came towards the end of the season, where New Orleans again traded for an injured star. New Orleans sends John Wall, Hamidou Diallo and Mitchell Robinson to Utah for Pascal Siakim and Brook Lopez. Siakim had somewhat of a down year in the NBA but he has a lot of attributes that will come in handy in New Orleans on both ends of the court and we think he can get back to that all star level.
John Wall is still a star in this league with elite speed and ball handling but that 50 million dollar price tag is heavy. We weren't actively shopping Wall because New Orleans isn't a Free Agent destination at the moment so we were only going to move him if we got a very good player in return and Siakim is that player.

Star
The star player for the Pelicans in the 2021 season might be shared with two players. Compare the pair. Player one averaged 24.6 points, 5.2 assists, 3.3 rebounds and 1.8 steals per game. Player two averaged 23.4 points, 3.8 assists, 4.4 rebounds and 1.4 steals per game. Both players played and started in 36 games. They are John Wall and Coby White. Unfortunately, both of them shot the ball around 40 percent which isn't great but they were the best players for New Orleans. Sort of sums up the 2021 season.

Goat
This is tough to write but Rui Hachimura had a rough season. He is young, playing out of position for the majority of the year and playing with two ball dominant guards in Wall and White but 10 points and 6 rebounds with not much else isn't really appealing. Shooting 40 percent from the field and 27 percent from three also hurts. Hachimura wasn't able to build on his successful rookie season but he has a lot of promise and im excited to see what Rui can do in 2022.

Free agency
As mentioned throughout, we don't see New Orleans being a big player in the up coming free agency period. Even though the Free Agency process is getting a shake up, the lack of GM points and their under .500 record, we can't see many big names coming to The Big Easy. That doesn't mean we won't be throwing our hat into the ring and hoping to scoop up some underrated contributes.

The Draft
We have done a lot of research in this years class and even though we don't have our selection, we have Oklahoma City's pick that will be in the late first round and with this class being so deep, we believe we can get a quality prospect. Once we know where the pick falls, a news piece will come out on some draft prospects we may or may not be targeting. With all this being said, we are open to potentially moving up in the draft and also potentially moving back in the draft...

The 2022
From 16 wins in 2020 to 25 wins in 2021, can we get to 34 wins in 2022? Well hopefully we can surpass that bench mark and maybe finish above .500... We are starting to get a nice core of players together with a mix of experience and youth. With the likes of Thompson and Siakim returning from injury, we probably won't be quite in a position to compete in 2022 but making the playoffs is a must. This is a long term plan. With a better record and a commitment to collecting points in 2022, we will be more attractive destination for free agents and with a commitment to nailing our draft selections, we are on a slow raise in New Orleans.

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