Hope and bafflement, in equal measure, color the upcoming New Orleans Pelicans season. Hope because Zion Williamson appears to be in the best shape of his professional career, and health has been his only obstacle to elite performance (albeit a large, persistent one). Bafflement because of roster moves that seem incomplete. Out are Larry Nance Jr and Dyson Daniels, who went to the Atlanta Hawks for Dejounte Murray. Jonas Valanciunas also exited in free agency. The team lacks an obvious center, now, unless new pick-up Daniel Theis can fill in better than expected at age 32, and on team number six of his NBA journeyman saga.
What’s more confusing than what’s happened is what hasn’t. The Pelicans have tried to trade Brandon Ingram, but no one seems too interested. Ingram is eyeing contract extension talks at the exact wrong time: teams are feeling the crunch of fresh team-building limitations, and they don’t want to end up in a sour, bloated marriage like that between Zach LaVine and the Chicago Bulls. Ingram, like LaVine, is precisely good enough to ask for a maximum contract and plausibly get one, but not good enough that anyone will be thrilled to give it to him. If, like LaVine, this had been his predicament two years ago, this probably wouldn’t have been a complication great enough to stop the biggest possible checks from being written.
But Ingram is in his pickle now—and with him, his team. It’s not just a matter of money, either. Herb Jones and Trey Murphy III are more complementary wings for Williamson—better off the ball on offense, and better defenders too. Ingram is a cook in a kitchen that is, especially with the addition of Murray, getting crowded. This is without yet mentioning C.J. McCollum! The “there’s not enough balls to go around” conundrum has never been more clear. In some cases a fallacy—like when three or more elite, extra-creative teammates come together—the idea is, in this case, a reality. Among Williamson, Ingram, Murray, and McCollum, only Zion is capable of consistently being the best player on the floor at the highest levels of competition. And if he’s going to finally put body and ability together for a full season (which, to be sure, he very nearly did last year at 70 games played) then the schemes and dreams of all other Pelicans become secondary at best.
Murray, Murphy, and Jones seem more a part of this modality than Ingram or McCollum. Jose Alvarado fits well here, too. These fitting pieces are 27, 24, 25, and 26 years old, respectively; Zion is 24. It’s easy to imagine that as Williamson figures out, after all, how to optimize his life as a pro, the Pelicans are partway through a transition from a core that introduced his career into one that maximizes it. Do not take any of this insinuation as reported, or as coming from an insider; I am just a person looking at the basketball situation the way an urban planner would look at a complex intersection of multiple highways, and see obvious ways to streamline it.
This is, surely, a view that the front office will take throughout the season. Lineup data will be scrutinized, and head coach Willie Green could be asked to facilitate certain experiments, to help confirm what shape the team should take. This is normal for any team that’s not already an unambiguous title contender, and has been New Orleans’ outlook throughout Zion’s career. Tinker, try, change, and hopefully get to somewhere progressively better. Last year, they had their best full season since they drafted him, winning 49 games. It wasn’t enough to avoid the play-in tournament in a brutal Western Conference, and Zion hurt his hamstring just as his season was peaking in a do-or-die game against the Los Angeles Lakers.
But pair his dramatic weight loss with his show-stopping play-in moment (40 points on 17/27 shooting; 11 rebounds, five assists) and you may have a player good enough to build a champion around. New Orleans can’t be certain of this, because they’ve already gone multiple times through the painful process of prospect correction, during his five-year odyssey. But this current moment contains their best mix of optimism and realism yet. His promising status doesn’t quite put his team up there with the unquestionable heavyweight fighters like the Boston Celtics, Denver Nuggets, Oklahoma City Thunder, or Dallas Mavericks. But in a league that’s increasingly a poker game featuring a deck with more poisoned cards than useful ones, the Pelicans boast one of the more potent long-term hands.