When does the New Orleans Pelicans’ schedule come out?

Ever since the Kevin Durant Golden State Warriors era ended in 2019, I feel like every off-season, I’m more excited about the upcoming season than I was the previous one. The parity keeps on getting better and better, and that’s a beautiful thing for the sport.

One team I am particularly eager to follow is the New Orleans Pelicans. Part of the reason for this is obvious: I write for Pelican Debrief. But the other part that makes them an interesting team to monitor is the potential volatility of this season.

There is a world where things go insanely well for them. Zion Williamson stays healthy, he and Brandon Ingram click, and all the young guns (Trey Murphy III, Dyson Daniels, Herbert Jones, and Jordan Hawkins) are able to fill their roles around them en route to one of the best seasons in franchise history.

But there is also a version of next season where s*** hits the fan. Williamson gets hurt again, team morale goes out the window, and they miss out on the playoffs for the second season in a row. Given all the rumblings we’ve heard this off-season, a season like that could signal the end of this current era of Pelicans basketball.

Clearly, a lot is at stake for the Pelicans during the 2023-24 Regular Season. But when will we know what their schedule looks like for this year? Unfortunately, we don’t have a definitive answer to this question. However, the good folks at Vivid Seats have some clarity about when that time will come. Here is what they said:

"“It’s likely that the NBA schedule will be released between Aug. 16-20. In the late 2000s, the NBA schedule release date was in the first week of August, before moving to Aug. 10 in 2010. The following year, the league moved up the schedule announcement date to July 19, the earliest it’s been in the last decade-plus.”"

Considering July 19th has come and gone, it is unlikely that we will be getting an earlier announcement this year than we did last (duh). As of right now, it appears that we will still have to wait another month before we know what the Pelicans schedule will look like for the regular season (and the In-Season Tournament).

I’m not going to lie. That’s kind of a long time. But as the old adage goes, “patience is a virtue.”