The New Orleans Pelicans Can’t Make the Same Mistakes as Cleveland
The Cleveland Cavaliers handling of LeBron James should serve as a warning to the New Orleans Pelicans of what not to do with Zion Williamson.
The New Orleans Pelicans are a mid-market team with a superstar, a pairing that has not always had the best results.
Just ask the Cleveland Cavaliers, who squandered most of LeBron James‘ young career before he ultimately left for greener pastures and a chance at multiple titles.
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You can even ask the New Orleans Pelicans themselves, as they failed to build a team around their own superstar Anthony Davis before finally shipping him to Los Angeles.
We think the Pelicans won that trade in the long-term, but their failure to build around Davis should have been a learning experience for the franchise.
Ultimately Cleveland won a title after LeBron restored his “Decision” Karma and came back to his hometown team.
Cleveland fans quickly forgot their team’s complete failure in LeBron’s first tenure after GM David Griffin finally built a championship team around LeBron.
David Griffin is now executive vice president of basketball operations for the New Orleans Pelicans, and hopes he can exorcise the ghosts of past failures, just as he did in Cleveland.
He’s off to a great start, as the New Orleans Pelicans have the best young core in basketball and a treasure chest of draft assets to go along with it.
With a 19-year-old budding superstar in Zion Williamson, All-Star Brandon Ingram, ascending Lonzo Ball and dunk-machine Jaxson Hayes, it would appear that long-term success is a given in New Orleans.
But if we’ve learned anything, it’s that nothing is a given in the NBA. Things change quickly and what looks like a decade of hunting titles can turn into a bunch of playoff defeats, an unhappy star and years of tanking.
The Cleveland Cavaliers mis-management was only able to squeeze five playoff appearances and one trip to the Finals out of the greatest player of all time before he ultimately left in a cloud of disgust.
The New Orleans Pelicans can learn from these mistakes and make sure they don’t repeat them when it comes to handling Zion Williamson.