New Orleans Pelicans: Takeaways from the Season-Ending Loss to Spurs

The New Orleans Pelicans need to balance the roster.

It’s Time to Fix the Roster

One of the problems the Pelicans and Alvin Gentry faced was that their team simply has too many guards and not enough size.

The Pelicans’s bigs have been mostly awful and teams have punished them with points in the paint and second chance opportunities.

When Jrue Holiday and Frank Jackson are routinely guarding the other team’s forwards, you know something isn’t right.

The Pelicans need some more size, strength and effort out of their bench, as guys like Nicolo Melli, Frank Jackson, E’Twaun Moore, Jahlil Okafor and  Kenrich Williams just aren’t getting it done.

The Pelicans have too many roster spots populated by guys who don’t fit, such as Okafor, and not enough talent to force players to compete for minutes.

Melli was essentially gifted the backup power forward spot even though he’s been broke since February. He played with effort in the last two games, but was often asked to do things he can’t do. At one point Derrick White took it to the hoop against Melli and scored on him like he wasn’t there.

The Pels need rim protectors, they need a big wing or two, and they need someone to come in and compete with Melli at power forward.

The Pelicans were soft in every game, and showed little or no defensive intensity outside of Josh Hart and Frank Jackson. This has to change.

David Griffin needs to bring in some size, but also some players who hustle, play with intensity and weren’t a soft blue blood from Duke.  They need someone who dives for balls, takes defense seriously and has adult strength.

This loss revealed some bigger truths about the New Orleans Pelicans, namely that they weren’t ready to be there and have some big roster problems.

But the good news is that they also have some stars, so it should be easy enough to fix this team.

The Pelicans first step towards being a consistent contender didn’t turn out like we hoped, but hopefully some good will come out of their time in the bubble.

Player grades coming soon.