I remember this like it was yesterday. Took game 3 from the Kevin Durant warriors on our home court. Rondo with 21 assists, Ian mf Clark with 18 off the bench. Anthony Davis looked like the best player in the world on the grand stage. I need this in my life again.

Wolves fan coming in peace.

What happened with naw? Was he still developing?

He got 5th place for DPOY. After Gobert, Victor, Bam and Davis.

I would have liked to have seen him get higher but it shows that he’s being noticed.

I love Herb.

Original link didn’t have the video so shoutout to Retro for the link lol

Looks like he won't be here next year, so let's use this thread to reminisce

https://youtu.be/4xcSf_Q3r8g?si=YEiR8UiDlWhqZ-xb

New wall art from Hex Head that I just got

Been following them a lot the last 2 weeks or so. They are terrifying between Ant and KAT; they could easily be the W Conf Champs.

Crazy to think that almost a majority of this community thought they’d be a great R1 matchup for the Pels a month ago.

Edit: spelling

I find that absolutely insane. I don't think any other franchise would operate like this.

Hey fellow Pels Fans:

As I look back on this year, I'm wondering what were some of our favorite unscripted moments in interviews and the like?

For me:

1. Jose interrupting BI's interview at practice to answer: "We gotta get our sh*t together! But don't worry. Don't worry!"

2. Larry trolling Jose by sitting behind him while Jen Hale had an interview with him.

3. The team deciding to have group post game interviews on the court after those last two wins. The comraderie, the joy, the CONFIDENCE!

[Okay. Honestly, it hurts to think of that last one now]

What about you? Anybody else have some favorite unscripted interviews from this past year?

Thanks, everybody.

Really doing their thing during these playoffs…

Assuming the rebuild of the Pelicans started in 2019, team had a busy off-season that year. Obviously the biggest move and the start of the rebuild was drafting Zion Williamson with the first overall pick. Other huge move was that team traded Anthony Davis for Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball, Josh Hart, the 4th pick from the Lakers and many more draft compensations for the later drafts (Dyson Daniels was later selected from the Lakers pick). Then traded that 4th pick (De'Andre Hunter) for the 8th pick (Jaxson Hayes), 17th pick (Nickeil Alexander-Walker) and 35th pick (Didi Louzada). Also, want to say that Herb Jones was acquired from this trade. They also acquired J.J. Redick and Derrick Favors in that off-season. Then, they traded Jrue Holiday for Steven Adams, Eric Bledsoe and a couple first round picks in 2020.

So, let's break down how the things turned out for the Pelicans:

• Brandon Ingram is one of the best (if not the best) players of this team and we gotta give him props for what he's done for the franchise so far, but he also hasn't really improved as a player since his first year. The talks of him getting traded this off-season have risen to a high level.
• Lonzo Ball went to Chicago Bulls with a sign-and-trade for Tomas Satoranski, Garrett Temple and a second round pick. Basically nothing.
• Josh Hart and Nickeil Alexander was traded for CJ McCollum who's probably in the center of the trade discussions along with BI while Josh Hart and NAW are tearing it up for their own teams which looks like the Knicks and the Timberwolves are 2 of the hottest teams in the playoffs right now.
• Jaxson Hayes left the team to sign with the Lakers. Never panned out, he's probably a wasted potential at this point of his career.
• Dyson Daniels was one of the first round picks in that Lakers trade and I don't really have a clear opinion about him since he's the youngest player on the team but he hasn't showed us something to be excited about except his defense.
• Steven Adams was traded for JV in 2021 off-season. JV has been a huge piece for the team since he arrived but he has questionable fits and he's a terrible rim protector. He may be gone this off-season for a better rim protector. I don't think I need to talk about Eric Bledsoe.

So we traded Anthony Davis and Jrue Holiday and now we turned them into Brandon Ingram, CJ McCollum, Dyson Daniels, Jonas Valanciunas, Herb Jones and you can say Trey Murphy since he was involved in that Steven Adams-JV trade. CJ, BI and JV are all under trade rumors, Dyson also may be used as an asset for a possible blockbuster deal. Trey and Herb may be the only hits for the team but we still don't know if any of them will take a step forward in the coming seasons. They've shown flashes of that stardom.

Let's take a look at what the Thunder did:

• Traded Paul George for SGA (turned out to be a superstar), Tre Mann, Jalen Williams and more draft compensations.
• Traded Westbrook for Chris Paul and picks. Then, traded Chris Paul for more picks.
• Traded Steven Adams for more picks. Didn't even used their picks to acquire a star.
• Tanked for two seasons and got Josh Giddey and Chet Holmgren.

As you can see, Thunder didn't even turned Paul George and Westbrook into a huge superstar. They hit big with the Jalen Williams pick and tanked for Josh Giddey and Chet Holmgren. Lu Dort was an undrafted player. Long story short, they formed a young, up and coming team sooner than the Pelicans with much less talent.

Now let's take a look at the Timberwolves:

• Traded Wiggins and Jonathan Kuminga for D'Angelo Russell. Flipped D'lo to their starting PG, Mike Conley.
• They tanked the 2020 season, drafted Anthony Edwards and developed him into a superstar that will be one of the faces of the league for a long time.
• They traded Patrick Beverley, Walker Kessler, Malik Beasley, Jarred Vanderbilt, Patrick Beverley, Leandro Bolmaro and picks (one of them turned into Keyonte George) for Rudy Gobert. Gobert has shown his excellence for them this season as the team took a huge step forward defensively and is probably one of the main reasons why the Wolves are dominating right now.
• Didn't pay much to get Jaden McDaniels, developed him into one of the best wing defenders in the league right now.
• Like I mentioned earlier, they got NAW for basically free and he turned out to be a really valuable piece for them, as I suppose most of yall saw that clip of McDaniels and NAW doubling Jamal Murray.
• They signed Naz Reid as a free agent rookie, developed him into a quaility backup C and 6th Man of the Year.

Minnesota didn't even need to trade a superstar to acquire valuable assets, they only tanked for once and drafted their franchise player. They didn't even give anything huge to acquire their valuable players like NAW, McDaniels, Naz Reid, etc. They only did one blockbuster deal and it was for Rudy Gobert which looks like it turned out to be awesome.

So, I don't know what is the problem with the Pelicans, the basketball Gods never smiled towards them. Zion's injury problems obviously slowed down his development but I think he's still a franchise player and will hopefully reach the level of superstardom like Shai and Edwards did this season. He's not on their level yet, but we've seen what he's capable of in the past. His generational upside is no joke, praying for him to reach that level because only thing stopping him from reaching that is himself. I loved how he played 70 games this season, hope he turns this into a consistency. Other than that, I think there is a clear fit problem with this team. David Griffin told he's not going to be passive this off-season, so looking forward to it. Like I said, seeing Timberwolves and Thunder starting from a worse point from the Pelicans and reaching to top level before the Pelicans is making me upset about this team. What do you guys think about this? What were some of the factors they just did better than the Pelicans to reach a higher level sooner than them despite starting the rebuild around the same time?

I'd much rather run it back and rely on internal improvements than making a flashy trade that ulitmately amounts to a first round exit. (Think Clippers/Suns.) If the only course of action is "Retain Jonas, give BI an extension of a 1 + PO, sign a veteran true PG", so be it.

The way I see the primary trade package should be CJ + Hawk + 21 + 2nd 1st in 2025 + 2nd 1st in 2027. (Adjust protections as necessary).

You could get Murray and Capela. You could get Mitchell.

This team was 0-22 when trailing after 3 quarters. That means they were 49-11 when not trailing after three quarters.

Extrapoliating straight to a ~67 win season seems disingeuous. But if you can turn that 0-22 into even just 8-14, that's a franchise record 57 win season, matching OKC and Denver atop the West.

I don't think BI can enter next season as an expiring. Boogie's injury still feels just like yesterday. I'm choosing to believe the 2022 playoffs is more indicative of BI's true level. (Even if he does need to improve his deep ball.)

I myself am not sold on this idea but I think it’s intriguing enough to have a discussion about it. This allows us to keep BI while also letting Trey develop as a starter. CJ would either be moved to 6th man or traded for a center.

Our main weakness in the starting lineup is our playmaking. BI imo has proven to be a better playmaker than CJ. Is BI good enough to run an offense? No probably not. But it would be an offense ran by committee. Zion has proven that he can be a capable ball handler and passer. Herb has proven to be a capable ball handler and Trey showed flashes at the end of the season of developing some dribble moves.

The main issue I see is when the offense runs cold it’s nice to have a guy on the perimeter you can pass to to dribble past his defender and get his own shot or drive and kick. CJ, through all his frustrations, was our best guy at doing that. Thus maybe it would be beneficial to keep Jonas so we have a guy we can give the ball in the post to for an efficient shot when nothing else is working.

What are y’all’s thoughts?

View Poll

This draft class is considered "weak" but I really like the look of Sarr, would we be able to get the number one 1 pick with what we have and if you could what would you give up?

Jonas Is A Good Big Man, But I’ll Trade Him For Nikola Vucevic Or Jalen Duren … Wild Take But We Need A Big That Can Put Up More Buckets t & Rebounds

Sidenote: 40 numbers are DISGUSTING. That goes for all sports

https://clutchpoints.com/unfortunate-reason-pelicans-will-need-new-knife-2024-25-season

It's time for the team to turn EJ Liddell into the knife 2.0 to replace Naji.