How the Miami Heat are a cautionary tale for the Pelicans

The New Orleans Pelicans are in bad shape, both literally and figuratively. In the literal sense, this team's injury report is virtually a full listing of their entire rotation. Aside from Brandon Ingram, almost every single player who figures to suit up for the Pelicans in the playoffs has spent time in the infirmary: Zion Williamson, Dejounte Murray, CJ McCollum, Herb Jones, Trey Murphy III, and Jordan Hawkins.

New Orleans has struggled to tread water amid all of these injuries. Through the first tenth of the season, the Pelicans sit at just 3-5, 14th in the Western Conference, ahead of just the Utah Jazz. The West is absolutely stacked this year, evidenced by the 10 teams currently at .500 or better at this point in the season.

With the Pelicans flailing and the campaign raging on, there's a fear that the hole this team is digging itself into will be too abysmal for them to climb out from even with all of their core players available again. The injuries that New Orleans has been dealing with have been incredibly devastating and a legitimate reason for why the team is underperforming, but that hasn't stopped fans and analysts from clamoring for Head Coach Willie Green's seat.

What the Pelicans can learn from the Miami Heat

Willie Green took over a 31-win team and led them through steady improvements every single year so far. He's done that while working with some severely flawed rosters and against a litany of injuries, including to his star players in Zion and Ingram. This season, he was given a team with practically no center depth and has again had to deal with having a massive chunk of his players sidelined. But there hasn't been much patience or grace for Green and his 3-5 Pelicans.

Another team that's struggled this season has been the Miami Heat who currently sit at 3-3 with their only wins coming against the Detroit Pistons, Charlotte Hornets, and Washington Wizards. There's not much reason for panic, though, as the Heat have been notoriously slow starters and even underperformers in the regular season. There aren't many opposing fans who would want to face Miami in the playoffs.

The Heat have earned that respect by going to the Finals twice during the Jimmy Butler era. Miami Head Coach Erik Spoelstra has essentially locked up his job security by leading those Finals runs along with the two championships he won with "the Heatles."

But it wasn't always that way. LeBron James famously wanted to dispose of Spoelstra following the Heat's collapse against the Dallas Mavericks in the 2011 NBA Finals. But Miami President Pat Riley overruled the King himself and put his faith in Spoelstra, and it's paid off handsomely.

Today, Spoelstra is universally regarded as one of the best coaches in the league and a mastermind tactician. If it weren't for his reputation and the Heat's postseason success, it's hard to see him being heralded as a top play-caller with his results. After all, they've only won more than 50 games once since LeBron left town, and Miami is consistently middle-of-the-road in terms of record, offensive rating, and defensive rating.

Despite Spoelstra's status as an expert with the Xs and Os, the Heat often go through offensive bogs, extended stretches where they struggle to generate consistent offense. These scoring droughts are a big reason why Miami isn't consistently at the top of the standings and a main motivator for their pursuit of Damian Lillard two summers ago. They should also be extremely familiar to the Pelicans and their fans, as their team regularly suffers from these periods as well.

The parallels don't end there. Like New Orleans, the Heat fail to consistently pour in buckets due to their personnel. In this current era, they're led by Jimmy Butler, a point forward who's mostly a non-shooter and does his best offensive work as an orchestrator, slasher, and midrange magician, and Bam Adebayo, an athletic marvel of a big man who's a consistent mismatch for both bigger and smaller players due to his blend of size and skill. The Pelicans are similarly built around Zion and Ingram, two great offensive talents with overlapping skills that make it difficult for both to maximize their potential.

To help alleviate the redundancy of inside scoring between Butler and Adebayo, the Heat employ a few deadly shooters like Duncan Robinson, Tyler Herro, and Terry Rozier, but their spacing is never perfect and the offense can get extremely ugly if any of those players is unavailable or gets into a cold spell. The same goes for the Pelicans with their shooters like CJ McCollum, Jordan Hawkins, and Trey Murphy III.

Miami also heavily relies on secondary playmakers to run their offense. Between Butler, Adebayo, Herro, and Rozier, the Heat have enough ballhandlers to make it work, but there are obvious times that they could use a true floor general to drag them out of their slumps. That same sentiment rings true for the Pelicans without Dejounte Murray.

Ultimately, Head Coach Erik Spoelstra is given the benefit of the doubt while he navigates a flawed roster, one with similar pitfalls to the Pelicans'. That same grace needs to be given to Coach Willie Green, who has a proven record of nurturing growth from this New Orleans core. He has shown an inability to coax consistent offense out of his guys, but he's never had a true point guard. Now, Dejounte Murray's come to town but went down with a fractured hand after just one game — in which he tallied 10 assists. The Pelicans need to see what Coach Green can do with a real floor general before making any rash decisions.