The New Orleans Pelicans have an exciting collection of individual talent that didn’t meet expectations as a team.
Zion Williamson had a breakout season, Brandon Ingram was consistent again, Lonzo Ball had his moments and the young Pelicans progressed but they didn’t have the team success they were hoping for.
You can blame Lonzo’s inconsistency, Ingram’s defense, Stan Van Gundy’s coaching or untimely injuries but the truth is the Pels had some glaring flaws as a team aside from any of those issues that were the reasons they were not in the play-in tournament.
Here are five holes the New Orleans Pelicans need to fix this offseason.
New Orleans Pelicans: The Pels need shooters
David Griffin already addressed this issue in a recent press conference, and I have written a ton about it, so I won’t belabor the issue.
The Pelicans dropped to 26th in the NBA in 3-point percentage, shooting just 34.8 percent from long range. To give you an idea of how bad they were, the best team, the Los Angeles Clippers, shot 41.1 percent from the 3-point line.
The Pels were also 25th in 3-point attempts, which makes some sense considering Zion was handling the ball a lot and took a ton of shots in the paint, but he was also double teamed pretty much every time he touched the ball, which should lead to a lot more open, makable 3-point shots than the Pelicans took.
This has to be addressed and the Pelicans should definitely consider a guy like Doug McDermott in free agency this offseason.