If the New Orleans Pelicans have designs on making the playoffs next season, they should look to the Pacific Northwest for pitfalls to avoid.
As the Pelicans front office prepares for the beginning of the 2021 offseason, their attention will be on maximizing Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram as the focal points of what was a pretty successful offense.
Zion has vaulted himself into All-NBA consideration this year on the strength of a 27/7/3.5 season; while Ingram missed out on an All-Star nod despite his 24/5/5 stat line being nearly identical to his All-Star season the year before.
These two are the most important players on the Pelicans roster and every move from here on out needs to be about making sure these two can reach their potential. It’s not very often teams have two All-Star level players under 25 years old on their roster, especially in just their second year together.
Zion and BI are two world-beaters offensively, the two would’ve scored the most points of any duo in the NBA this season had they not gotten hurt at the end of the season (the pair finished 3rd). Yet, the young duo wasn’t even brought up when discussing top pairings in the NBA going into this season.
That can’t be blamed just on the lack of defensive impact these two make though as any combination of the Brooklyn troika isn’t setting the world on fire with their defense. The Pels stars were just overlooked is all. Now the defensive issues with these two are not to be taken lightly as teams still need to play on both ends of the floor.
There is a team in the Pacific Northwest that can offer the Pelicans some instruction when it comes to building around two dynamic offensive talents that struggle on the defensive end.