Ranking the New Orleans Pelicans’ Starters Against the NBA’s Best
By Tim Burke
The New Orleans Pelicans want to contend for the Larry O’Brien trophy in the coming years. Let’s see how the current roster stacks up against the NBA’s two best teams.
It may seem premature to hold the New Orleans Pelicans up against the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers, the two best teams in the league, but the young Pels are on their way.
Just two seasons ago the Pelicans made it further in the playoffs than Milwaukee and the Lakers didn’t even make the playoffs. Things change quickly.
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The Milwaukee Bucks have the best record in the NBA this season at 53-12. They’ve gotten to where they are while resting starters by having them play reduced minutes in each game instead of sitting out whole games; blasting teams with a +11.2 net rating each game.
The Los Angeles Lakers hold serve in the western conference at 49-14 with a +7.4 net rating per game. Their starters are playing more than expected this season, LeBron James even said “If I’m healthy, I play.” according to the Los Angeles Times when asked about load management.
The New Orleans Pelicans on the other hand are currently 3.5 games behind the Memphis Grizzlies for the eighth seed in the West with a 28-36 record and a -0.8 net rating.
The team has played much better since Zion Williamson made his NBA debut in late January, but injuries and a slow start (that doesn’t include an 0-13 stretch) really put the team behind the eight-ball.
We’re going to compare the starters of each of these teams by position and see who the winner is at the end.
For this I’m going to use the lineups for both Milwaukee and Los Angeles that got the most playing time over the season and for the New Orleans Pelicans, the lineup the team has used since Zion’s debut.
While this may seem like cherry-picking to get the New Orleans Pelicans more “wins,” I feel this is a better representation of what the team will be in the future.
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Here’s the group of players and the positions they will be evaluated at (all will be looked at in order of team record),
Point Guard – Eric Bledsoe, LeBron James and Lonzo Ball (yes, LeBron is a point guard)
Shooting Guard – Wesley Matthews, Avery Bradley and Jrue Holiday
Small Forward – Khris Middleton, Danny Green and Brandon Ingram
Power Forward – Giannis Antetokounmpo, Anthony Davis and Zion Williamson (talk about a stacked position group)
Center – Brook Lopez, JaVale McGee and Derrick Favors
Let’s get to it.