New Orleans Pelicans: Pros and Cons of the play-in tournament returning

Analyzing how the 2021 playoffs play-in tournament could help or hurt the New Orleans Pelicans

With the 2020-2021 NBA season inching closer as the draft and free agency stand only hours away, we’re starting to get an idea about how this upcoming season will work for the New Orleans Pelicans.

One of the biggest indications about what will happen next season, of course, came from ESPN Insider Adrian Wojnarowski who revealed that the NBA will bring back their playoff play-in tournament plan that worked very well last season.

Pelicans fans might bluster by hearing that given how the team performed when they entered into the bubble. In that situation, the Pelicans had a chance to secure a spot in the playoffs or a play-in with a good showing in the seeding games but flopped. So how should fans feel about the play-in tournament returning? Let’s assess the pros and cons of it.

How the play-in tournament could help the New Orleans Pelicans next season

Let’s start on the positive side of things, the playoff tournament obviously gives the New Orleans Pelicans more time to come together as a team and make the playoffs in a shortened regular season.

I think this is something that you can’t underrate when considering the NBA landscape and specifically the Western Conference. We all know the New Orleans Pelicans are getting better, but other teams are too.

I look across the conference and I see a team like the Golden State Warriors who are certain to revive themselves into a playoff contender. Then I see young teams like the Memphis Grizzlies and Phoenix Suns who are also young and getting better. That’s before even mentioning some of the conference’s elite who are only becoming stronger.

Obviously, some of the Western Conference playoff teams from last season like the Houston Rockets and Oklahoma City Thunder are set to fall back to earth, but we can’t say that the conference isn’t competitive.

For the New Orleans Pelicans who are almost certainly going to need time to gel thanks to Stan Van Gundy bringing a new system and new faces on their roster, the play-in tournament becomes something that creates a competitive balance.

When we also consider the fact that this Pelicans team is still very young, the more time they have to play, the better I think they’ll be. Certainly, that’s probably why the NBA elected to bring back this format, but as we know this blessing could also be a curse in disguise.