There's no doubt that the New Orleans Pelicans are full of problems. They came into the 2024-25 NBA season with issues, like health concerns over their star players, their uninspiring center rotation, and an overall lack of reliable depth. More troubles popped up as the campaign wore on, though.
Those health concerns turned into an ugly reality, as injuries piled on throughout the year, starting with Trey Murphy III going down in training camp with a strained hamstring. Then, Dejounte Murray fractured his left hand in his very first game with the Pelicans. More and more players joined the injury report from there.
With all of the absences they've had this season, it's difficult to ingenuously analyze this team, considering that they've played the bulk of their games with multiple members of their core sidelined. That said, it'd be a waste to just write off this past stretch for New Orleans. As comforting as it'd be just to chalk up all of their losses to injuries, a deeper dive into the numbers shows that the Pelicans' problems might be more complicated than that.
The New Orleans Pelicans have failed to make halftime adjustments
With all of their missing pieces this season, the Pelicans have grown accustomed to playing in a deficit — a deficit of talent and a deficit on the scoreboard. While they may have grown familiar with trying to mount a comeback, they haven't gotten any better at it.
In their latest game against the Memphis Grizzlies, New Orleans came out flat and dug themselves an 11-point hole that would prove to be too much to overcome. They wound up playing the Grizz even in the second half and lost by 11, 109-120. This time around, Head Coach Willie Green was able to inspire his team and devise a way for them to keep pace with their opponents, but their slow start doomed them before intermission.
This has been a recurring theme throughout the season, except usually, the Pelicans come out even worse in the second half. According to TeamRankings, New Orleans has a negative net differential in every single quarter so far this season:
Quarter | Pelicans' net rating |
|---|---|
1Q | -1.2 |
2Q | -1.3 |
3Q | -5.7 |
4Q | -3.6 |
While the Pelicans have been a losing team overall, it's especially concerning that they're significantly worse in the second half of these games. That means that not only is New Orleans failing to mount comebacks, but they're only seeing their deficits widen after intermission.
At the top of the third and fourth-quarter net rating rankings are teams like the Boston Celtics, Denver Nuggets, and Cleveland Cavaliers, strong squads with proven, ingenious coaches leading the way. Head Coach Willie Green has been low on the list of things to blame for the Pelicans awful start to the season, but he'll need to find a way to get his team to turn things around in the second halves of games if New Orleans is going to be any sort of playoff threat this year.