New Orleans Pelicans Rumors: The Season Lives On

The New Orleans Pelicans are one of the teams that are likely to be included when the NBA season re-starts, with an official decision to be made on Thursday.

However the NBA decides to finish its season, it looks like the New Orleans Pelicans will be a part of it.

The NBA Board of Governors is expected to vote tomorrow on commissioner Adam Silver’s plan to re-start the season in Orlando.

According to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, there is league-wide support for Silver’s plan, which will reportedly include 22 teams:

Whether the NBA goes with 20 or 22 teams, the New Orleans Pelicans will play meaningful games.

Now that the number of teams is seemingly decided, the NBA will have to agree on a format, which is rumored to include either regular season games, a play-in format or both.

The NBA has consistently said that they do not just want to start playing playoff games, so it’s likely that teams will either finish 6-8 of their regular season games or play some type of tournament.

Of all the rumored ideas, including all of the teams within six games of a playoff spot seems the fairest, though there will certainly be some teams who feel overlooked, or who would like to play games even if they have no shot at the playoffs.

It appears that there will be some type of training camp and that games could resume as early as July 31st. It will be interesting to see if any of the non-playoff teams participate in practices or training camps.

On one hand, they might not want to risk the health of staff and players, but on the other, it will be long offseason otherwise, which could negatively impact young or small-market teams, who need the practice or to stay relevant.

The New Orleans Pelicans would be such a team, as they are both young and in a city dominated by football. They would quickly become an afterthought once the NFL starts, so it’s important for the Pelicans to play meaningful games to say in the minds of their fans.

This NBA season has been unparalleled for turmoil, political unrest, sadness and anger. Let’s hope the re-start of the season can offer some distraction and positivity to communities who have been without it for most of this awful 2020.