New Orleans Pelicans: The good, bad and very ugly from preseason

New Orleans Pelicans: Passing and shooting

The Pelicans passing and shooting were terrible in preseason but don’t worry, those aren’t important parts of the game! (Yes, that’s sarcasm, I know you can’t be too sure these days).

The Pelicans’ ball movement was atrocious for most of the preseason and they didn’t really have a point guard who looked comfortable running the offense.

Kira Lewis Jr. led the team with 3 assists per game, which is not great, even if most of the guys were on limited minutes.

The Pelicans were especially bad in the half court and had a hard time generating good shots with the their two stars on the bench. This is to be expected, but I was hoping to see more ball movement, as it was something Willie Green preached in preseason.

The shooting was even worse. I know it is preseason, but this was just flat-out ugly.

The Pelicans shot 39.2 percent as a team overall and just 33.5 percent from 3-point range. If you removed Trey Murphy III’s long-range shots from that, the team shot just 28.7 percent.

We talked a lot this offseason about whether the Pelicans’ shooting had improved and so far the answer is no. HOWEVER, the looks are going to be a lot better with Zion and B.I. drawing defenders, so let’s not panic just yet.

Also, Josh Hart, Naji Marshall and Garrett Temple were 4-of-31 between them. I don’t expect Temple to be playing as much, Marshall will get better looks with Zion back and Hart is a veteran with a track record of at least being league average.

The next time we see the New Orleans Pelicans play the games will count, so let’s hope they can shake off the injury bug and start coming together on offense over the next week.