New Orleans Pelicans: Ranking the Pels’ roster from bottom to top

New Orleans Pelicans: Pels’ roster ranking from bottom to top

The Role Players

#14: Wenyen Gabriel

The Pelicans needed some competition for Nicolo Melli’s minutes and may have found a gem in Gabriel. He hasn’t played much but he projects as a guy who will play hard defense, block some shots and body the other team’s bigs.

He doesn’t have much offensively, but he is a nice complement to Melli and will push him for minutes if Melli’s shots aren’t falling.

#13: Sindarius Thornwell

Thornwell is a holdover from the bubble. He didn’t play much but the Pels must have liked what they saw because they decided to retain him. He has good size and might be asked to play some wing. He has active hands-on defense and runs the floor well, but hasn’t had much opportunity to prove himself. It’s going to be tough for him to crack this rotation.

#12: Willy Hernangomez

Hernangomez has never put up big numbers, but he’s a big body whose contributions don’t always show up in the stats. The Pelicans clearly went with defense when replacing Okafor with Hernangomez and that’s a good thing, as they were terrible in the paint last season. If nothing else, he will provide some size and depth at the position.