New Orleans Pelicans: The Pels’ 3 biggest mistakes of the offseason

The early struggles for the New Orleans Pelicans go back to the offseason.

The New Orleans Pelicans are off to a mediocre start that has been nothing if not frustrating.

While their starting five has been very good, the bench has been one of the worst in the NBA, with even veteran J.J Redick forgetting how to make a shot.

I’d like to say this is surprising but I spent the entire offseason screaming that this exact thing was going to happen if the Pelicans didn’t get some depth for their bench.

I’m no genius, it was obvious to anyone who watched the Pelicans last season and saw what they had heading into this one.

Trading out Jrue Holiday for Eric Bledsoe and Steven Adams has been a success so far, but the rest of the offseason is looking very suspect.

Here are the four biggest mistakes the New Orleans Pelicans made this offseason, which may end up hurting their playoff hopes.

New Orleans Pelicans: No depth at power forward

Counting on Nicolo Melli

I’ve written this about eight million times at this point, but Melli has been terrible dating back to last season.

After going 6-of-7 from long range against the Warriors on February 23, 2020, Melli has fallen off a cliff.

He has hit less than 20 percent of his shots since then, and shooting is the only thing he is supposed to be able to do.

I wrote countless articles about how the Pelicans needed to get a player to compete with Melli for those minutes, and who knows, maybe Wenyen Gabriel can be that guy.

But right now the Pelicans do not have a backup forward on their roster and Melli is unplayable.

It was a huge mistake to count on him to fill such an important role, especially with the injury history of Zion Williamson.

Huge fail for the Pels’ front office.