4 Most underrated players on New Orleans Pelicans current roster

1. Zion Williamson 

Listen, we’ve heard it all before. Yes, Zion Williamson is dominant when he’s healthy, but he’s never healthy. 

That’s fair. He’s never been healthy (yet). However, even the people that add that caveat don’t fully understand how good a healthy Williamson is. For starters, chew on this: after only playing 29 games last season, Williamson was voted to be a starter in the 2023 NBA All-Star game. Only ten players get to say that in a given season.

While part of the reason he earned that honor was his popularity, most of it was because of his splendor as a basketball player. When Williamson went down on January 2nd, the Pelicans had the eighth-best offensive rating (114.7) and third-best net rating (4.4) in the association. After he went down, the Pelicans were 25th (113.1) and 18th (-0.3) in those categories, respectively. That’s with Brandon Ingram being healthy for most of those non-Williamson games.

That’s monster impact for one man to have on a team. But that’s Williamson for you. The fate of New Orleans’ franchise rests on his broad shoulders, and every Pelicans fan knows it.

Everyone knows that a healthy Williamson is good. However, it feels like most outsiders think that he’s somewhere in the fringe All-NBA category. But people don’t understand that he’s even a notch above that. Healthy Williamson is a one man offense in and of himself. He’s one of the very best players on the planet. And until people start to acknowledge that, he’ll also be the Pelicans most underrated current player.