The New Orleans Pelicans 2024-25 NBA season of pain continues on. The good news? March Madness is here to offer temporary reprieve to any of the Pelicans' faithful that has an interest in college basketball.
For those still religiously watching professional NOLA ball, it hasn't exactly been casual viewing. In their last game, the Pels got pounded by the Detroit Pistons, 127-81. This time last year, Detroit was at the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings and the Pelicans were gearing up for a postseason run. Now, the tables have completely turned — a staunch reminder of the shortcomings of this franchise since swapping out Anthony Davis for another generational prospect and cornerstone in Zion Williamson.
What's truly disheartening is that the merciless beatdown and harsh reminder of their failures from the Pistons weren't even the worst parts of that game. At this point in their campaign, the Pelicans tacking on another loss is actually a good thing for their overall future plans. What isn't a good thing through any lens is having Trey Murphy III — whose ascension into stardom has provided New Orleans with one of their lone bright spots for the season — go down with a serious injury in a practically meaningless game that turned out to be a blowout loss.
The bad news keeps rolling in for the New Orleans Pelicans
The Pelicans were absolutely dismantled by the Pistons. Aside from Zion, who somehow still finished with 30 points, six rebounds, four assists, and two blocks on 50 percent shooting, no one from New Orleans had a night they'll want to remember. For example, Jordan Hawkins ended up with just six points on a putrid 2-11 shooting and wound up a game-low -42 in his 28 minutes.
Believe it or not, that wasn't even the worst performance from the Pelicans. CJ McCollum finished the game with three points on 1-15 shooting. That's not a typo. He really made one shot in 15 (fifteen) tries. That gave him an 8.7 percent true shooting mark.
But horrible shooting outputs come and go. What will be much harder to shake off is the mental image of Trey Murphy III writhing on the ground in pain just seconds into the game. It was revealed that he had suffered a torn labrum and will be out for the remainder of the season.
The Pelicans were essentially eliminated from playoff contention just weeks into the 2024-25 NBA season due to a string of injuries to their core, starting with Murphy straining his hamstring in training camp, so this latest setback is just par for the course for a franchise that has been seemingly cursed by the basketball gods.
Murphy III going down does raise questions about the ethicality of tanking and resting players in a lost season. On the one hand, fans still deserve to get to watch their favorite athletes suit up and give their all for their team. At the same time, it's hard to blame a franchise for holding their most important players out of essentially meaningless games when something like this happens.
According to In Street Clothes, the average timetable following shoulder surgery to repair a torn labrum is roughly 20 weeks. That should leave Murphy III with plenty of cushion to get ready for next season's training camp and preseason. That said, he'll be losing out on valuable time in the offseason that he could've used to condition his body and improve his game.
Currently, teams like the Toronto Raptors and Philadelphia 76ers are coming under fire for resting their key players in winnable moments and holding them out of games altogether, with the NBA launching an official investigation into the Sixers. The Pelicans have done things the right way, piling on losses purely due to real injuries and actual incompetence. Their reward? This devastating Trey Murphy news.
All signs point to New Orleans just being cursed, plain and simple. Whatever it takes, they'll have to find a way to lift this hex in the offseason and come back next year without any demons holding them down.