How the New Orleans Pelicans Stack Up Against the 8th Seed Hopefuls

With a restart to the NBA season looming, it’s time to see how the New Orleans Pelicans stack up against the teams vying for the 8th seed in the West.

The New Orleans Pelicans still have a chance.

On June 4th, 2020 NBA fans saw a ray of sunlight through the clouds of everything happening in the country recently, from BLM protests to COVID-19’s reemergence, the NBA’s Board of Governors approved a restart plan for the 2019-20 season. 22 teams are going to play in Orlando to finish out what has been the strangest season in NBA history.

With this plan there could be play-in games for the 8th seed in the Western Conference if the 9th seeded team is within four games of the 8th seed after every team plays eight games. This was great news for New Orleans as they were one of the five teams in the west that are currently outside the last playoff spot but will go to Orlando with a chance to either claim the 8th seed outright or be involved in the play-in games.

The five teams that are chasing Memphis for the last playoff spot are, in order of standings, Portland, New Orleans, Sacramento, San Antonio and Phoenix. Each of these teams is within six games of Memphis with eight games to make up the difference.

Today we are going to examine each team and decide who has the advantage on the court. San Antonio will be without one of their best players in LaMarcus Aldridge who had season ending shoulder surgery in April. The news was released just days after the restart plan was announced.

There are other injuries that have had plenty of time to heal during the pause, and depending on how much each team is willing to use those players during these eight games, there could be massive changes in the standings.

Here’s a list of players that could return for these eight games just from the six teams fighting for the last playoff spot: Memphis will get surprising rookie Brandon Clarke, Portland should get Jusuf Nurkic and Zach Collins (adding two starting caliber players is huge), New Orleans will get sharpshooter J.J. Redick and possibly get Nickeil Alexander-Walker, and Kenrich Williams with Darius Miller still up in the air, Sacramento could get Marvin Bagley, San Antonio should get Lonnie Walker, and Phoenix should get Kelly Oubre. T

Those injured players would make a good roster on their own, and adding them back to their teams will make those eight games even more exciting.