The New Orleans Pelicans got their first win of the preseason with a shorthanded roster that was without the services of Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram.
The rest of the team stepped up and the Pels cruised to an easy win behind a stout defense and their two emerging stars. It was another sloppy game and the Pels once again had trouble in the half court, but they were able to turn up the defense and get it done late.
Preseason overreactions are a time-honored tradition that I like to make fun of, as ultimately these games are meaningless, but if you follow the team on Twitter you’d think the fate of the free world was on the line, which is always amusing to me.
So I’ll take part by offering some wild overreactions to the first win of the preseason after the Pels dropped their first game to Minnesota.
Let’s start with one negative overreaction and then get to the positives.
New Orleans Pelicans: Devonte’ Graham sucks!
I must have read this about 800 times over the last few days, granted that 799 of them came from the same Lonzo Stan who is still stalking Pels’ Twitter for some reason.
Graham has had two bad outings so far, shooting the ball poorly and not looking very comfortable running the offense.
Graham did rack up seven assists against the Magic but only scored three points on 1-of-5 shooting.
I am sure Graham would have liked a better start with his new team but let’s relax here. Graham is brand new, it’s preseason and he’s being asked to do things that he will not be doing much of in the regular season.
Graham will benefit more than anyone from the return of Zion Williamson and ultimately may be best coming off the bench as an “instant offense” type player. His role is going to change as the season progresses and I expect he will have a very good season for the Pelicans once it is all said and done.
Now, let’s get to the positives.