The New Orleans Pelicans have not gotten off to the start they wanted and everyone from Lonzo Ball to Stan Van Gundy to Eric Bledsoe has been blamed.
The truth is that the Pels’ problems all revolve around one thing and it was easy to predict.
Two months ago I wrote about the Pel’s three biggest needs after the draft and free agency were finished. I named “wing depth,” “shooting” and “a playmaker off the bench” as the Pels’ three biggest needs.
After the first month-plus of the season, I stand by those and would add “a reliable backup big man” to the list.
All of these problems relate to a lack of quality depth on the roster, as the Pels’ bench has been the worst in the NBA to start the season.
The Pelicans’ starters can hang with just about anyone in the NBA but the bench is killing them.
Where does the New Orleans Pelicans’ bench rank?
The Pels’ bench has been the worst in the NBA by nearly any measure. They are dead last in points per game, 29th in field goal percentage, 24th in 3-point shots made, 26th in assists and 29th in blocked shots per game.
The Pelicans’ bench is not scoring and not stopping anyone else from scoring. They haven’t made 3-point shots, largely because the two guys who are supposed to be doing it, J.J. Redick and Nicolo Melli, haven’t been hitting them.
Jaxson Hayes hasn’t provided much shot-blocking, the Pels haven’t found a playmaker and they don’t even have a backup wing.
Only Josh Hart has been reliable off the Pels’ bench. Nickeil Alexander-Walker has been up and down, Melli is unplayable, as is Hayes and rookie Kira Lewis Jr. still hasn’t gotten much of a chance, though that should change.
The lack of bench is hurting the New Orleans Pelicans in a lot of ways.
New Orleans Pelicans: The Pels blow a lot of leads
If you have watched many Pelicans’ games this season then you might have noticed a pattern.
The Pelicans tend to come out hot in the first quarter and have had some monster starts to games.
Brandon Ingram scores most of his points in the first quarter and often comes out firing. Zion Willamson has gotten off to some big starts as well, and the Pelicans have mostly played their best basketball in the first quarter.
Then the bench comes in.
Time and time again the Pelicans have blown double-digit leads when some version of their bench is in the game.
They tend to play more isolation-ball with Zion and Ingram and the bench unit, the ball stops moving and they stop stopping the other team.
By the time the starters are back in the game together, the whole feel of the game has often changed and the Pelicans go from being an energetic team flying all over the place to one that is stagnant and lacks chemistry.
Part of this is that the Pels are a young team still trying to learn the mental part of the game but the other is that their bench has been terrible and sucks the life out of the team.
New Orleans Pelicans: Players are out of position
Another problem with the lack of bench depth is that it has forced guys into playing out of position a lot of the time.
I get that the NBA is evolving into a position-less league but when Josh Hart and NAW are trying to defend power forwards, that is a problem.
Hart is a good defender but is often tasked with guarding much-larger players, which is fine but it would also be nice if his size as a shooting guard was more of an advantage.
NAW is asked to handle the ball too much at this point in his career because the Pels don’t have any other playmakers off the bench.
Zion Williamson has played at center because Hayes and Melli stink and it has been a disaster on the defensive end and not something that is sustainable for long stretches.
Willy Hernangomez has played well in his first minutes of the season and can hopefully provide some stability behind Steven Adams but the Pels still need wing depth and shooting, which has caused guys to play out of position.
New Orleans Pelicans: The bench has no chemistry with the starters
Coming into the season, there were some intriguing lineup possibilities with different starters mixed in with the bench.
We hoped that a couple of guys would form chemistry with Zion or Ingram so that the Pels had additional weapons when some of the starters were out of the game.
In particular, the possibilities of a Zion or Ingram pick-and-roll with J.J. Redick had potential or Lonzo and Zion playing with a small-ball lineup of shooters or Zion creating shots for Melli.
None of these things have happened on a regular basis and none of the starters have any kind of chemistry or two-man game going with the bench.
This mostly comes down to Redick, who has shot less than 30 percent from 3-point range, which no one predicted.
But it also comes down to the fact that the Pelicans don’t have the talent or depth coming off their bench.
By now someone should have grabbed the reigns and stepped up as the Alpha bench player but so far only Josh Hart has contributed consistently and he hasn’t shot the ball well either.
The New Orleans Pelicans have to get more from their bench, as it is costing them games by blowing big leads and wrecking the flow of the game.