How many games will the New Orleans Pelicans win next year?

After an off-season full of speculation about a potential roster shakeup, the New Orleans Pelicans are running it back with largely the same core as last year.

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Before injuries derailed their season, the Pelicans were off to their most promising start in years – winning 23 of their first 37 games before Zion Williamson went down with a strained hamstring that sidelined him for the rest of the season.

If they had kept at that same win pace, they would have won 51 games in 2022-23, which, if everything else remained constant, would have tied them for second in the Western Conference with the Memphis Grizzlies.

So, how good will the core of Williamson, Brandon Ingram, CJ McCollum, Trey Murphy III, and Herbert Jones (and others) be next season? We asked fans of the team on our Twitter page (@PelicanDebrief) to find out what the temperature of the room is in that regard. Here is what they said:

So it appears that Pelicans’ fans believe the team is better than the 42-40 team they eventually ended the season as after Williamson went down with injury. But they also don’t believe that they are as good as their win pace before the Williamson injury would suggest (or else the majority would have voted for the “More than 50” option).

DraftKings Sportsbook has the Pelicans over/under currently at 43.5. So, they would have voted for the 40-45 win option (like 18 of the people that voted). I’m not a betting man, but I’d be willing to wager that their over/under is significantly higher if there was more certainty regarding Williamson’s health. After all, when he’s right, this team is one of the best in the association.

I wonder what the front office’s over/under is for wins to make them happy about this team moving forward. Like we started with in the introduction, there were some rumblings that the Ingram/Williamson duo may be getting split up.

Those rumors have since been shot down, but one can’t help but contemplate how many wins it will take this year to keep those questions from resurfacing. One thing is for certain, though, this is going to be an interesting season.