Are the Pelicans the worst franchise ever?

[tamaraw08]

The New Orleans Pelicans, a Pelican as the mascot of a sports team. Before even talking about the basketball stuff, I want to give the name a moment of recognition. It is really the worst name of all the teams in the NBA.

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The name doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. .

it is the dumbest name in sports. no one wants to say "pelicans" so everyone says "pels"
the one word i associate with lousianna is "cajun". to ME cajun feels like a regional description of everything involved in the culture and has no racial undertones imo

,,,,,though i prefer "the steamboat willies" myself


and no the worst sports franchise ever were the sterling clippers and timberwolves

Al Pacino would disagree.
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[Doctor MJ]

the one word i associate with lousianna is "cajun". to ME cajun feels like a regional description of everything involved in the culture and has no racial undertones imo

Oh Cajun certainly has White overtones. You're talking about a culture (Acadian) that began in French Canada and was there more than a century before the British expelled them and then those Acadians largely settled in the southwest corner of Louisiana whereas New Orleans was founded at the mouth of the Mississippi which is at the eastern border. Understandable to think this was all one culture because it all comes from France originally, but not quite.

Also, I think you might be joining the terms "cajun" and "creole" together, which makes sense because there's certainly been a lot of cross-pollination between the two, but the former has white overtones while the latter has mixed race overtones. I believe that technically the term Creole is officially broader category name and includes the Cajuns as a sub-set, but still use of the term "creole" tends to imply mixed race.

oh, ok.. I thought Cajun had no racial overtones. creole does for sure, without regard for whether it's good or bad. I don't think using ANY race as a face of a sports enterprise is ever a good idea.. howz about gumbo. the "new Orleans gumbo"... it fits the org

I actually think "Gumbo" is a perfect name for a NO mascot.

[Doctor MJ]

Then the other classic throw-ins like the Kings, TWolves, Clippers, well these teams have turned leafs around or have had enough iconic eras and players that they have legitimate fandoms today.

So yes, the Pelicans might be the worst franchise in the NBA and it really sucks.

So I think an earnest discussion here has to really put up front that franchises who began earlier need to be judged differently than those who started later.

The Kings for example began as the Rochester Royals, who had great success in the early years as a small market in part because of the money they made barnstorming. The franchise can always point to what it did in the 1940s/50s to avoid the "worst ever" designation.

Meanwhile the Clippers were absolutely the worst run franchise in sports for their first few decades, but if you stick around long enough in a major market, you're eventually going to have some success.

I think it makes sense to just look at cume W-L% to just give a sense of average badness, so of teams that still exist:

1. Timberwolves .412
2. Clippers .424
3. Hornets .431
4. Grizzlies .436
5. Nets .439
6. Wizards .444
7. Kings .458
8. Pelicans .465
9. Magic .470
10. Raptors .470

So then from this perspective, the Pelicans haven't really been an outlier in badness, they just are an expansion franchise that's mostly struggled.

In terms of their specifics across the Paul/Davis/Zion eras, I think they've mostly just been unlucky. I wouldn't say they've been particularly well-run, but honestly I wouldn't say their failures have been about outlier levels of incompetence.

How come expansion teams in the NBA don't have the success that expansion teams in other leagues do? In the NHL and MLB, expansion teams have won a championship within the first few years of their existence. The Marlins in 1997 and 2003 for one. The Las Vagas team in the NHL has been to the finals twice, winning once in their first 3 seasons. Sombody will have to tell me if this has happened in the NFL. I can't think of an example. But the Carolina Panthers got to the Super Bowl fast. Their first season maybe.

Fantastic question. I can't claim to have had done any exhaustive study on the matter, but I will say:

It would be an entirely different story if there were no lottery in the NBA.

The lottery exists precisely because it's historically easier to identify truly worthy top tier prospects in basketball than in baseball or football, which led to a brutal tanking problem, which then got partially remedied by the lottery.

So then, if the worst team can't be assured of even having the chance to draft a superstar with many years near the bottom of the league, everything becomes a hard slog to even achieve respectability, and when you achieve it in the modern game, solid chance your star player is going to force his way out if there's any sign that you're plateauing below champion level.

Another thing to consider: Randomness of playoffs.

The NFL is single elimination, that makes it easier to get lucky than playoff series.

Baseball is a game with a HUGE amount of randomness involved, which makes it easier to get lucky.

Hockey is also more random than basketball, but it also has the phenomenon of the "hot goalie", which is effectively a kind of randomness (more on that in a second) . While baseball has the "hot pitcher", all the opponent has to do is reliably win the innings he's not pitching in and they win. The hockey goaltender can be there of every minute of every game, and if a team just can't figure out how to get the puck passed him, they're screwed.

--- Okay so on the hot goalie phenomenon, I should say I don't know what the modern analytic view on this is because I don't follow hockey closely, but my understanding is this:

It is a known, recurring phenomenon in the NHL for an underdog to achieve multiple playoff series upsets in a playoff run, and to do so on the back of a goalie just having a major spike in their Save% relative to both prior and future data would predict.

What the specific hockey-causes of this are, I'll refrain from speculating here so as not lower my credibility further, but in terms of making it more likely that a team can make an unexpected run, if it exists, it diminishes predictability.

[Doctor MJ]

the one word i associate with lousianna is "cajun". to ME cajun feels like a regional description of everything involved in the culture and has no racial undertones imo

Oh Cajun certainly has White overtones. You're talking about a culture (Acadian) that began in French Canada and was there more than a century before the British expelled them and then those Acadians largely settled in the southwest corner of Louisiana whereas New Orleans was founded at the mouth of the Mississippi which is at the eastern border. Understandable to think this was all one culture because it all comes from France originally, but not quite.

Also, I think you might be joining the terms "cajun" and "creole" together, which makes sense because there's certainly been a lot of cross-pollination between the two, but the former has white overtones while the latter has mixed race overtones. I believe that technically the term Creole is officially broader category name and includes the Cajuns as a sub-set, but still use of the term "creole" tends to imply mixed race.

Here in South Florida, Creole means Haitian people. Where do you get mixed race from? I though most of the black people in New Orleans were Haitian. That's not the case? They're black people from France or French Canada?

The term "creole" comes out of imperialism, and so that's the root connection here as the name comes to refer to different specific things as new context develops.

Originally it was a term for someone born in the Old World (predominantly European or African) who lived in the New World (Americas). So it was both the imperialists and those they enslaved.

Then generations happened and it came to be known as anyone whose ancestors were from the Old World but whose family had since established themselves and remained in the New World, be they White/Black/Mixed.

In Haiti, there was a full oppressed-take-power revolution (1791), and afterward the nation became almost entirely Black and politically isolated. So Haitian Creoles are largely Black.

In Louisiana, White Creoles continued on, as did all the different shades of mixed race.

There's another factor that I think ties into the mixed connotation: The languages that emerged from the mixing of European and African populations became known as Creole, and so the word "creole" now literally means "mixed" in that context.

Last note on Haiti's fate compared to a place like New Orleans:

Spoiler:

New Orleans was founded to be the city connecting a great river (Mississippi) to an ocean (Atlantic). It's something that naturally translates to any civilization that has the capacity for water-based trade, and thus is ought to be able to thrive through any era. (NO's prominence has been diminished by the Erie Canal, Railroads, etc, but it's still always going to be a significant city if the ecology holds up.)

Before the Haitian Revolution, the French colony of Saint-Domingue so was basically one big plantation for luxury goods like sugar and coffee, which left it inherently dependent on trade with an outside world dominated by Whites who were not interested in letting other continental American slaves think they could succeed in their own revolutions. So, when they (nations plural) weren't trying to re-take the colony, they were at least working to ensure that Haiti became a failed state.

[K N U C K L E S]

So I think an earnest discussion here has to really put up front that franchises who began earlier need to be judged differently than those who started later.

The Kings for example began as the Rochester Royals, who had great success in the early years as a small market in part because of the money they made barnstorming. The franchise can always point to what it did in the 1940s/50s to avoid the "worst ever" designation.

Meanwhile the Clippers were absolutely the worst run franchise in sports for their first few decades, but if you stick around long enough in a major market, you're eventually going to have some success.

I think it makes sense to just look at cume W-L% to just give a sense of average badness, so of teams that still exist:

1. Timberwolves .412
2. Clippers .424
3. Hornets .431
4. Grizzlies .436
5. Nets .439
6. Wizards .444
7. Kings .458
8. Pelicans .465
9. Magic .470
10. Raptors .470

So then from this perspective, the Pelicans haven't really been an outlier in badness, they just are an expansion franchise that's mostly struggled.

In terms of their specifics across the Paul/Davis/Zion eras, I think they've mostly just been unlucky. I wouldn't say they've been particularly well-run, but honestly I wouldn't say their failures have been about outlier levels of incompetence.

How come expansion teams in the NBA don't have the success that expansion teams in other leagues do? In the NHL and MLB, expansion teams have won a championship within the first few years of their existence. The Marlins in 1997 and 2003 for one. The Las Vagas team in the NHL has been to the finals twice, winning once in their first 3 seasons. Sombody will have to tell me if this has happened in the NFL. I can't think of an example. But the Carolina Panthers got to the Super Bowl fast. Their first season maybe.

Fantastic question. I can't claim to have had done any exhaustive study on the matter, but I will say:

It would be an entirely different story if there were no lottery in the NBA.

The lottery exists precisely because it's historically easier to identify truly worthy top tier prospects in basketball than in baseball or football, which led to a brutal tanking problem, which then got partially remedied by the lottery.

So then, if the worst team can't be assured of even having the chance to draft a superstar with many years near the bottom of the league, everything becomes a hard slog to even achieve respectability, and when you achieve it in the modern game, solid chance your star player is going to force his way out if there's any sign that you're plateauing below champion level.

Another thing to consider: Randomness of playoffs.

The NFL is single elimination, that makes it easier to get lucky than playoff series.

Baseball is a game with a HUGE amount of randomness involved, which makes it easier to get lucky.

Hockey is also more random than basketball, but it also has the phenomenon of the "hot goalie", which is effectively a kind of randomness (more on that in a second) . While baseball has the "hot pitcher", all the opponent has to do is reliably win the innings he's not pitching in and they win. The hockey goaltender can be there of every minute of every game, and if a team just can't figure out how to get the puck passed him, they're screwed.

--- Okay so on the hot goalie phenomenon, I should say I don't know what the modern analytic view on this is because I don't follow hockey closely, but my understanding is this:

It is a known, recurring phenomenon in the NHL for an underdog to achieve multiple playoff series upsets in a playoff run, and to do so on the back of a goalie just having a major spike in their Save% relative to both prior and future data would predict.

What the specific hockey-causes of this are, I'll refrain from speculating here so as not lower my credibility further, but in terms of making it more likely that a team can make an unexpected run, if it exists, it diminishes predictability.

Another thing with MLB is the teams with the biggest payrolls usually win.

[Memories]

Whoever decided to pick and keep the name “Pelicans” deserves to be shot through a cannon.

What player in their right mind thinks, “man, I would love to be a PELICAN!”.

[D.Brasco]

Whoever decided to pick and keep the name “Pelicans” deserves to be shot through a cannon.

What player in their right mind thinks, “man, I would love to be a PELICAN!”.

I've thought that "Nugget" might be the worse team demonym in sports. No man wants to be referred to as a "nugget".

[Memories]

Whoever decided to pick and keep the name “Pelicans” deserves to be shot through a cannon.

What player in their right mind thinks, “man, I would love to be a PELICAN!”.

I've thought that "Nugget" might be the worse team demonym in sports. No man wants to be referred to as a "nugget".

Nugget at least could mean two things: chicken nuggets (which a lot of people love), or gold nugget (money, jewelry, almost everybody loves?).

Pelicans meanwhile, are just jerks that no one likes. And not a single thought is about them when it comes to “tough” animals. Like Grizzlies, Bulls, or Hawks. Even “Hornets” sound tougher and more intimidating as an insect than a Pelican.

I would rather have them be called “ Honey Badgers”. At least then they would be a fun meme. Plus even those creatures are tougher and cooler than Pelicans.