New Orleans Pelicans: These 3 things have changed from last season
The New Orleans Pelicans are a lot more versatile
The Pelicans had a lot of one-dimensional players last season, particularly the veterans Redick, Melli, Bledsoe and Adams.
Redick and Melli were essentially statues who could shoot (and they couldn’t even do that), while Adams offered no offensive game other than setting screens.
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Jonas Valanciunas will be a big upgrade on the offensive end, with way more in his bag than Adams.
All three of these players were extremely limited defensively and have now been replaced by guys like Herb Jones and Trey Murphy III, who can guard all over and defend multiple positions.
This should allow the Pelicans to go small with their own version of the “Death Lineup,” something they couldn’t really do last season, which means they weren’t taking advantage of Zion’s unique ability at his size. He is tailor-made for small-ball lineups and now the Pelicans can run them out there because they have more versatile players.
Multi-dimensional wings are running the NBA right now and the Pels finally have a few of their own instead of guys who are really only good at one thing, and in the case of Melli, not even that.