New Orleans Pelicans: Projecting the Next 5 Years in the Southwest

When projecting how the New Orleans Pelicans will fare over the next five seasons, it’s important to keep the strength of their division in mind.

If the New Orleans Pelicans want to take over the NBA, they will first have to dominate their division, which won’t be easy.

The NBA postseason is much different from the other major U.S. sports in that the playoffs are not seeded by division and instead by overall conference standings.

While they don’t necessarily gain an advantage in the playoffs by winning their division, like a first round bye or hosting more home games in a series; teams play each division opponent four times over the course of a season.

This means teams like Milwaukee can pad their win totals by playing the Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland, while Toronto has to face teams like Boston, Philadelphia and Brooklyn (when healthy). The Pelicans will be in a similar scenario to the Raptors over the next five years.

Each of the five teams in the Southwest Division (Houston, Dallas, Memphis, New Orleans and San Antonio) are all going to be included in the 22 teams headed to Orlando to finish the season. No other division has all of its teams included in the now approved restart of the NBA season.

The only team in the Southwest that looks to be heading toward a rebuild is the Spurs, each of the others either has established stars that can carry their team towards the playoff or young guys that will be All-Stars in the next few years.

Let’s take a look at each of the teams and evaluate how they will look for the next half decade.

Young Stars Leading Up and Comers

These two teams are on a very similar timetable as the New Orleans Pelicans and will continue to push for playoff spots over the next five years.

Memphis Grizzlies

The main rival for New Orleans is the team that currently holds the eighth seed in the Western Conference. The Grizzlies are led by the number two pick in the 2019 draft, Ja Morant. Memphis has been very smart about building this roster; getting a first round pick from Golden State just to take the salary of Andre Iguodala, then flipping Iggy to Miami for Justice Winslow are two recent examples.

With an average age of 23.5 years old Memphis has the youngest roster in all of the NBA. Pretty scary when you consider three of their best players are below that mark (Morant, Jaren Jackson Jr. and Brandon Clarke).

This team has been smart about who they pay since trading away Marc Gasol and Mike Conley. Their most expensive player is Gorgui Dieng at $16 million and he’s a free agent after the 2020-21 season.

Only two players on the roster will be free agents after this season (Josh Jackson and De’Anthony Melton) and both should be re-signed by the team as they are a large part of what was the best bench in the league earlier this season.

The often overlooked Valanciunas has quietly had an excellent season averaging 14.9 points and 11.2 rebounds and even leading the team in WinShares while playing just over half of each game (26.3 min). Another encouraging note is that the young players this team is counting on have done very well by Win Shares as well.

Valanciunas has 6.3 WS followed by Clarke and Morant with 4.4 and 3.4 respectively.

This team has a ton of potential and will remain mostly the same over the next couple years while the core of Morant, Jackson and Clarke learn the NBA.

Not many teams in history can say they made the playoffs while being led by three players who were not even 24 years old. They will be in a very similar position to New Orleans in attracting veterans to their city with hopes to make a deep playoff run.

The Grizzlies will be one of the teams to beat in the Southwest for years to come and the rivalry with the New Orleans Pelicans will be one of the best in the NBA.