With a Western Conference play-in tournament a possibility, we took a look at how things might go for the New Orleans Pelicans in the fight for final playoff spot.
With the NBA season in hiatus, the New Orleans Pelicans may have to wonder what could have been when it comes to the playoffs.
This is true of so many things in the NBA, as it is unclear what might happen with free agency, the salary cap or even the draft.
The New Orleans Pelicans were one of five teams with a realistic chance at capturing the eighth seed if the regular season resumes sometime late in the summer.
The NBA could also skip the rest of the regular season altogether and have some kind of play-in tournament for the eighth seed in each conference.
This would not only be exciting basketball, but would give each lottery team a fair chance at making the playoffs.
This is not a bad idea moving forward and could be something positive that comes out of the suspension of the season.
With no idea how this might look in reality, we at Pelican Debrief put together a Twitter play-in tournament whose winners were chosen by you the reader.
There were a lot of questions heading into the final stretch of the season.
Could the Memphis Grizzlies fight off the four teams on their heels?
Could the New Orleans Pelicans continue to claw their way up?
Would the Trail Blazers or Spurs maintain the status quo or would one of the young teams supplant them?
We may never know the answers to these questions, but we do know who won our Twitter play-in tournament, so without further delay, here are the results of our Western Conference play-in tournament, as chosen by the readers.
(1) Memphis Grizzlies vs. (8) Golden State Warriors*
The first game features the eighth seed Golden State Warriors against top-seed Memphis.
The good people of Twitter chose Memphis by a wide margin, but this would be one of the more interesting matchups if the play-in tournament did happen.
Memphis won two of the three matchups against the Warriors this season, but the Warriors were missing Klay Thompson, Stephen Curry and Draymond Green for most of them.
With Curry and Green already returning before the hiatus, there is a good chance the Warriors would make a longer run in this tournament in real life.
The young Memphis Grizzlies were not playing well going into the break, losing six of 10, and the Warriors would have a good chance of beating them in a seven game series if they were close to full strength.
Memphis would have home court but the Warriors have been through the playoff wars and have the chops. Not sure we can agree with the readers on this one.
(2) Portland Trail Blazers vs. (7) Minnesota Timberwolves
Neither the Portland Trail Blazers nor Minnesota Timberwolves were happy with how this season turned out.
Both fancied themselves playoff teams coming into the season, especially the Trail Blazers, who were looking to build on their Western Conference Finals appearance from the year before.
Both teams were playing poorly coming into the hiatus, but the Trail Blazers looked much more like a team fighting for a playoff spot.
The two teams split their season series 1-1, but the readers had no faith in the Timberwolves, who got whooped in our first round matchup.
If this were to happen in real life, the smart money would be on Damian Lillard and the Trail Blazers.
(3) New Orleans Pelicans vs. (6) Phoenix Suns
After starting the season 6-22, the New Orleans Pelicans had turned things around.
With Zion Williamson returning to the lineup, the New Orleans Pelicans were definitely the most dangerous and best team outside of the playoffs.
They were still trailing Memphis by 3.5 games, but had two games remaining with the Grizzlies and FiveThirtyEight gave the New Orleans Pelicans a 60 percent chance of passing them and claiming the final spot.
The Phoenix Suns started out hot this season but quickly returned to the norm and had no realistic chance of catching Memphis as they were six games out.
The Suns and New Orleans Pelicans split their season series, but at full-strength there is little chance the Suns would win this one.
Our readers agree, and the New Orleans Pelicans crushed the Suns to move onto the next round.
(4) Sacramento Kings vs. (5) San Antonio Spurs
The Kings came on late in the season and were looking like one of the teams that had a real shot at catching Memphis.
They had won seven out of their last ten, and sat tied with the New Orleans Pelicans and Portland for ninth place.
The New Orleans Pelicans were set to play the Kings in the last game before the suspension of play, but the game ended up being cancelled.
The Spurs have a 22-year streak of making the playoffs on the line, and it would have been strange to have a Western Conference playoffs without them.
The readers on Twitter didn’t care about history and gave the win to the surging Kings, which feels right.
The two split their season series 1-1 with the Kings winning the most recent game.
*Percentages as chosen by Twitter poll
(1) Memphis Grizzlies vs. (4) Sacramento Kings
This is an interesting one and probably our biggest disagreement with the readers on Twitter.
Not only were the Kings playing much better than the Grizzlies going into the hiatus, but they had already beaten Memphis three out of four times this season.
This would certainly be closer than the final tally indicates and the smart bet may even be on Sacramento pulling the upset here.
The grind of fending off four teams all year was finally seeming to get to Memphis and it is was getting likely that the season could come down to the final game.
We like De’Aaron Fox and the Kings to end the Cinderella run by Ja Morant and the Grizzlies, but the readers disagree and we defer to their wisdom.
(2) Portland Trail Blazers vs. (3) New Orleans Pelicans
First of all, how fun would this be?
Whatever happens with this NBA season, we’d love to see some version of this tournament. It would be extremely exciting and discourage teams from tanking.
The New Orleans Pelicans cruised again in their second round matchup against the Portland Trail Blazers.
This one might look lopsided but when you consider that the New Orleans Pelicans had already swept the season series, it’s not an unlikely result.
The Trail Blazers had no answer for the size of the New Orleans Pelicans and couldn’t keep them from getting out on the break.
While our readers might have just a slight bit of bias, we have to agree with this result. The New Orleans Pelicans handled the Trail Blazers all year and would again in a series.
The Final Match of our Twitter Western Conference Play-in Tournament felt like an inevitability all year.
The Memphis Grizzlies and New Orleans Pelicans were destined to fight for the final spot one way or another.
They were also fighting for several individual awards, particularly Rookie of the Year, where Morant had a narrow lead over Zion that was rapidly closing.
The award may have come down to which team made the playoffs, so let’s see what our readers predicted in the Final.
(1) Memphis Grizzlies vs. (3) New Orleans Pelicans
In the Final of our Twitter play-in tournament, the New Orleans Pelicans crushed the Memphis Grizzlies 94.8% to 5.2%.
While we openly admit there was some bias to this poll, we have to agree.
The Pelicans handled the Grizzlies twice this season already with two still left to play and if the regular season were to resume, we believe the Pels would catch the Grizzlies for the final spot.
We may never know the answer to this question of who would take the eighth seed in the Western Conference, but a play-in tournament would be an exciting way to decide it.
We at Pelican Debrief are committed to bringing you coverage of the New Orleans Pelicans during the hiatus.
Thanks so much for participating and for the continued support during these trying times.
Stay healthy and safe out there!