The New Orleans Pelicans are a team that has a lot to prove this upcoming season. Last year there was an evident lack of cohesion and an inability to close out games. It’s why the team only could muster 31 wins and had to retool their roster this off-season.
The Pels aren’t the only team in their division to have a new roster with a renewed focus heading into the 2021-22 campaign. The Southwest teams look vastly different from the end of last season, meaning it’s interesting to see where the Pelicans fall into things. Where do the Pelicans rank in the Southwest Division?
Let’s investigate.
New Orleans Pelicans: Southwest Division power rankings
#5 – Houston Rockets
The Rockets continue to be at the bottom of the league despite turning over a large part of their roster. The talk of Houston starts with their draft and the second-overall pick, Jalen Green.
The six-foot-five combo guard is a walking bucket with athleticism that could one day project him as a top-five player in the league. Green is my frontrunner for Rookie of the Year and someone who should put up numbers effortlessly with his projected volume.
Funny enough, they even got a guy who is a discount Jalen Green in Josh Cristopher later in the first round. He’s someone who I thought would be picked earlier than where he was and could be a good flier pick for the Rockets.
As far as off-seasons moves went, it was far from inspiring. Handing Boston castaway Daniel Theis a four-year/$36M was one of the worst deals handed out this year. Besides retaining Khyri Thomas on a multi-year deal, the Rockets remained largely quiet throughout the break. For a roster that has depth issues and holes at most positions, it’s mind-boggling.
The front office is putting a lot of faith in Kevin Porter Jr. to handle the brunt of the scoring, but I’m not sure he is capable of doing that on a decent team. According to WAR RAPTOR, a metric that values offensive and defensive value, Porter Jr. was simply dreadful. He was in the third quadrant of the graph, which means he had a negative win above replacement on both ends of the court.
Outside of the rookies, the other glimmer of hope of Houston is Christian Woods. He is an overrated offensive weapon, but defensively he is a solid anchor in the middle of the floor. The Rockets are abysmal defensively from top-to-bottom, which makes Wood even that more valuable to the team.
The Rockets are a bottom-feeder franchise right now and are putting faith in multiple guys who are barely over the legal age to lead them out of the dog days. Unless there is a mid-season acquisition or unforeseen breakout, the Rockets should be sitting at the bottom of the Southwest Division and Western Conference as a whole.
#4 – San Antonio Spurs
The least inspiring roster in the entire league is the San Antonio Spurs. A far cry from a dynasty built from the ground up, the current roster infrastructure of the Spurs is put together with balsa wood. Greg Popovich is the second-best coach in the history of the sport, and this team has made him look like he has a second job as a mall Santa.
They lost their best player, DeMar DeRozan, which made their off-season already start in a poor direction. I think the greater issue was it is 2021, and DeMar DeRozan was the team’s best player.
The best player on the team now is Keldon Johnson, who I actually like a lot. I am a firm believer in Team USA propelling players to another level and expect Johnson to do just that this season. Even when he was on the court for international play, Johnson looked like he belonged.
I’ve always believed in Dejounte Murray, but beyond that, it’s like pulling teeth trying to get excited about any of these players. A team that has zagged on the small ball era of basketball that is centered around spacing overpaid for a guy who all he can do is shoot in Doug McDermott. Lonni Walker IV had crazy hair at one point; have I mentioned that yet?
Jakob Poetl deserves a shout for having ridiculous defensive metrics and resurrecting his career. Thad Young is always solid and seems to be valued by good teams. That is where players of note end for this team.
It doesn’t help they botched this past draft, grossly over drafting Alabama guard Josh Primo. It was one of the more mind-boggling reaches in recent memory and criticized by seemingly everyone. They haven’t even played a game yet, and I think it’s already safe to say I would rather have Chris Duarte and Trey Murphy III over Primo.
The only reason I have them here is out of respect for coach Popovich. I expect them to rattle off close to 30 wins, which is about 12 more than they probably have any business winning. This team is far from talented but should play hard every night.
#3 – Memphis Grizzlies
The first real surprise of the list, I have the Memphis Grizzlies falling in the middle of the pack. The Grizzlies have a lot of good, but not a lot of great, which I expect to catch up to them sooner rather than later.
Everything in Memphis starts with athletic freak Ja Morant. To be honest, I’m not nearly as high on Morant as many in the media are. I think offensively- he is still incredibly inconsistent game-to-game. His outside shot is streaky at best, and he tends to compound mistakes. Defensively he is a liability and is routinely picked out on that side of the floor.
He’s an impressive young talent; that is undeniable. The issue is in a West that continues to improve- I don’t like him as the best player on a team.
They made the playoffs last year, but it took injuries and dysfunction to multiple teams better than them to do so. It’s hard for me to imagine such lightning strikes twice.
Outside of Morant, this team lacks above-average talent. Dillon Brooks is probably the second-best player on this team, which is probably not a good thing. Brooks is a high-energy defender who has bothered the likes of Steph Curry with his motor and quickness. Offensively he is a mess, one of the biggest mixed-bags the NBA has to offer.
Their off-season moves depleted their talent even further, losing Jonas Valanciunas to the Pelicans and replacing him with the package of Zaire Williams, Steven Adams, and Eric Bledsoe. Williams had an awful year at Stanford and was drafted highly because of what he did in high school. Adams and Bledsoe looked outdated with the Pelicans last year. Their inability to stretch the floor hurt the team dramatically and won’t fair any better in Grind City.
The likes of Kyle Anderson, Desmond Bane, and De’Anthony Melton are fine players, but no one you want to turn on League Pass to watch. This team is painfully average, with an uber-talented conductor at the helm. This team has the 10 seed written all over them.
#2 – New Orleans Pelicans
The most underrated adage in all of sports is addition by subtraction. There are certain things that deter a team so much that just by them no longer being there anymore makes the team better. Look no further than the New Orleans Pelicans.
Stan Van Gundy took time away from interrupting the great Brian Anderson’s commentary to interrupting the Pelicans roster as a whole. It was as if Gundy was preserved in a block of ice since 2009 (the last time he was a good head coach) and coached the team with his mentality from that year’s Magic team.
Basketball has changed so much in the past decade, and the second-most talented Van Gundy couldn’t seem to figure that out. Awful lineups, late-game execution that would make Anthony Lynn cringe, and a personality that rubbed the team the wrong way the moment he got the position.
If he wasn’t bad enough, Eric Bledsoe was on the team playing real minutes. Last year Bledsoe had a lower win share than the likes of Bryn Forbes and Bismack Biyambo. His offensive rating was 310th in the league. These stats don’t even sound factual, but unfortunately for Pelicans fans, are very real.
Steven Adams has also departed, which is another major victory for New Orleans. The weird part is Adams is a decent NBA player. He has good efficiency numbers and is an average defender for the most part. Rebounding the ball, he is above average and is elite at setting screens (a lost art in today’s NBA). The issue is he clogs the lane and can be slow on the court.
The Pelicans have rid themselves of these demons and have replaced them with new additions Willie Green and Jonas Valanciunas. It would be hard for Willie Green to coach this team any worse than it was last year. He would have to purposely try to fail, something that obviously won’t happen.
Valanciunas is a better player than Adams and a better fit for this team. He has shooting touch, is better offensively, and has more success running up-and-down the court. He’s widely regarded as one of the more underrated players in the NBA and should work well with the current roster construct.
The Pelicans haven’t done a perfect job replacing departed talent, however. The team lost Lonzo Ball and essentially replaced him with Devonte’ Graham. Ball was putting it together at the end of his Pelican’s tenure and is only getting better. He is one of the best facilitators in the league, something that could’ve been valuable if he was allowed to set up the offense.
Graham is a largely inefficient volume scorer who doesn’t offer 50% of the playmaking ability of Ball. Not to mention he is an inferior defender, and it’s hard to justify this move on any level.
New Orleans might be able to erase the thought of losing Ball if their first-round pick Trey Murphy III can be the steal he is shaping out to be. The Virginia product lit the Summer League on fire and has a game easily translatable to the NBA.
With the improved coaching and talent of the roster, it’s hard for me to think the Pelicans don’t take a step forward this season. New Orleans is better on paper than teams like the Grizzlies, but cohesion was what cost them in the past. The Pelicans are a team, that at worst- should be in the Play-In Tournament.
#1 – Dallas Mavericks
It should be no surprise the Dallas Mavericks sit atop the initial power rankings. They have the best player in the division and are the only team that could realistically win multiple rounds in the playoffs.
The Mavericks roster isn’t as good as their fans would like, but they have a top-5 player in the league in Luka Doncic. He had a breathtaking junior year in Dallas and looked like he could thrust himself into the best player in the world conversation sooner rather than later.
Few players can carry a team as Doncic can. He is near the top of the league in usage rate because that’s the only way the Mavericks can win games.
Rick Carlisle was getting stale as the head coach, and they replaced him with former Mavs player Jason Kidd. I was less than impressed with Kidd’s first two ventures as a head coach in the NBA, and it seems like players agreed. Stories have come out about how difficult Kidd was to play under.
I’m not sure I can see Kidd and Luka meshing well together, but that is an issue that could boil up down the line. If they get through the season with minimal drama, the team shouldn’t be affected too greatly.
The main issue for Dallas is who is going to be playing well alongside Luka. Kristaps Porzingis was brought in to be Doncic’s sidekick but has instead been a menace for the team to deal with. He’s always in controversy, and when he’s on the court, he rarely delivers.
Tim Hardaway Jr. and Reggie Bullock are players that fit nicely alongside Luka and can stretch the floor. Both are streaky scorers and not reliable enough to give consistent offensive output on a nightly basis.
The front-court depth is rather weak, with heavy reliance on guys like Willie Cauley-Stein and Dwight Powell. Moses Brown, who they acquired in the Josh Richardson trade, could be an intriguing flier for this team. They need him to hit to take the talent of this team up a step.
Jalen Brunson is a solid player but shouldn’t be Luka’s most consistent wingman. The Mavericks have a lot of holes, notably secondary scoring. They still have Luka Doncic, and unless he is playing with children on the court, his teams will have success. Dallas is a clear playoff favorite, something no other team in the Southwest Division can say.