It's been widely accepted that the New Orleans Pelicans aren't going to make the playoffs for the 2024-25 NBA season, nor should they continue to try to make it. Nearly halfway through the campaign, the Pelicans are at the very bottom of the Western Conference standings, 3.5 games behind the 14th-seed Utah Jazz at 7-31.
While the franchise hasn't explicitly stated that they're tanking the rest of the season and abandoning their original playoff aspirations, it doesn't take a jurist to read between the lines of what the team has been willing to put out. Reportedly, New Orleans is open to trading nearly all of their players outside of a few designated young prospects. It's also been alleged that they've been shopping their star players in Zion Williamson, Brandon Ingram, and CJ McCollum.
Obviously, these aren't the actions of a team still trying to compete for a title or make a run at the postseason. They're much more suggestive of an organization ready and willing to tear it all down in pursuit of a rebuild. Even if New Orleans still wanted to make the postseason, it'd be impossible, right? Let's take a look at what the Pelicans would actually have to do in order to get themselves back into the playoffs.
Could the Pelicans still make the playoffs?
This seems like a ridiculous question. I'm going to assume that no team that was at the bottom of their conference standings nearly 40 games in ever went on to make the playoffs. This is what the Pelicans are up against: a herculean, unprecedented task that feels impossible.
Thankfully, this new era makes it a little bit easier, as New Orleans would only have to climb five spots into the 10th seed to make the postseason. From there, they could win two games in the Play-In Tournament to claw into the playoffs. At the time of writing, the San Antonio Spurs hold that spot with an 18-19 record. The West hasn't turned out to be the powerhouse that many expected it to be, which leaves the door cracked open for this hypothetical Pelicans' push.
If New Orleans could finish the year at .500, they'd have a realistic chance to earn a spot in the Play-In. At 7-31, the Pelicans would have to go 34-10 the rest of the way to end up at 41-41, or .500. That would give them a 77 percent win rate for the remainder of the season.
For comparison, that 77 percent mark over a full campaign would translate to 63 victories. Since the 1999-20 season, there have been 15 teams who have won 63 or more games.
Of those squads, 10 of them went on to the NBA Finals and eight of them won it all, including last year's Boston Celtics who went 64-18 and upended the Dallas Mavericks to take home the Larry O'Brien. Essentially, if the Pelicans somehow clawed their way to a .500 record and wormed their way into the playoffs, they should be regarded as title favorites. To quote the great Kevin Garnett, at that point, "anything is possible!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"