New Orleans Pelicans 2024-25 Season Preview
New Orleans Pelicans 2024-25 Season Preview
Starting today, each day for the next 30 days, it’s season preview time! I hope no real changes happen once I start releasing, though. In each preview, there will be a quick season and off-season recap. The preview will be looking at what’s in store for the team. It’s looking at some questions, things to look forward to, digging deeper into some of them. At the end, there are final thoughts with predictions for the standings, the floor, the ceiling, playoff chances, and some other fun tidbits!
Season & Off-season Recap
The New Orleans Pelicans luck is the worst. They can’t have a single season where things go right for them. In each of the past few seasons, there was always something at different points in the season. Whether it was Zion Williamson missing the entire regular season, a bunch of trades being made, more guys being injured, and this year with the same old story.
They did make the play-in again and made the playoffs but they got swept by the Oklahoma City Thunder with Williamson not playing a single second.
It’s fitting that they end the season with a player being injured since they also started the season with a key player, Trey Murphy, starting the season late.
But they still had a relatively healthy season from all of their top players. Williamson played 70 games(most in his career), Brandon Ingram played 64(most in his time with the Pelicans and second highest in his career), CJ McCollum played 66 games, Jonas Valanciunas played all 82 games, and Herb Jones played 76. They had their players play a lot of games. Even when looking up as a trio of Williamson, McCollum, and Ingram, they played 43 games.
They did well in those games being 27-16 and had over a +5 net too. They were winning games when they were playing together. And yet, they still ended up being the seventh seed and having to battle out in the play-in.
Their playoffs weren’t any better, either. Yes, they were without Williamson, but to get swept and not even cracking 93 points is inexcusable. You had Ingram score 14 points per game on 45% TS. You add McCollum scoring 18 points on 47%.
It was an unfortunate end and one that also brought up many questions heading into the off-season and into the next one.
They certainly made moves in the off-season. Trading for a player of Dejounte Calibre is a considerable change. That changes the dynamics of the team. It’s bringing a player that does require a certain setup to be maximized. It’s not as easy and simple of a fit that you can plug in however you want.
Their off-season also meant losing a bunch of players that have played a role on the team with Valanciunas, Larry Nance Jr, Nnaji Marshall, and a young promising player in Dyson Daniels. They shuffled up some of the roster and I don’t know how much better they came out of it. They also had a draft pick at 21 to select Yves Missi, which might be needed seeing their depth at center.
Right now, I’m not sure how to feel about their roster after their off-season.
Season Preview
So, what’s in store for the Pelicans:
Can they remain healthy from top to bottom for the year, especially in the playoffs?
Will Williamson show that he can stay healthy and be a top-15 player for the year?
Will CJ McCollum continue his improvement and be that efficient?
What’s going to happen with Ingram? Will he be extended? Is he going to take a step forward in his game?
How is Murray going to fit with the team? What will that adjustment look like?
What even will be their starting five and the rotations?
Who are the bigs?
What’s next for both Jones and Murphy?
Some young guys’ development
The first and the most important point that only matters, above everything else, is health. All of these moves and addressing whatever need they may have will matter nothing if their best player doesn’t play a full season, doesn’t play in the playoffs, or your best players play almost no games together.
Before considering anything else, the question will be can they stay on the court enough to even matter, and can they be healthy when it matters the most?
That’s as simple as it can get.
Beyond health, the question will be how good can Williamson be. Because of his poor health and zero consistency with that, it’s tough to evaluate him as a player. There are too many breaks throughout the season and in between seasons that you have to work with things in theory.
He clearly has shown enough flashes of pure dominance that you can’t argue against. He can generate rim pressure like it’s the easiest thing possible. Per BBall-Index, since 2014, he holds the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 7th highest amount of shots at the rim per 75.
That’s absurd and insanely impactful. There’s nothing and no one that can stop him from getting to the rim. But we know all of that already. There are still questions in other parts of his game when it comes to his defense, his shot outside of the rim, his perimeter shooting, and being able to be used differently in different situations.
It’s those areas that are hard to address when he’s either not on the court or there’s no continuity in anything that he or the team does. He may well dominate when he’s the sole star on the court, but how does that look with everyone else and will those lineups be successful?
He 100% does have the potential to be a top 15 player, but until there’s also a sample size of minutes in the playoffs, it’s also tough to see how it’s all going to translate. This whole conversation might be moot and he can easily be as dominant against playoff-level defenses, but we’ll never know until that happens.
The team will go as far as Williamson and right now, that is unknown on both ends of the floor. What is he going to like on the defensive end? Can they survive with him as the sole big? Is he up for that role? If other lineups bring in a big, can he continue to do what he does? If you want to go far in the playoffs, you need a top-15 player who can be effective on both ends of the floor to some extent.
This issue or question isn’t as high as the rest of it. With what he has shown already, it’s fair to assume that he’s going to keep getting better. The only question that is and has been a concern is health.
The bigger questions revolve around both McCollum and Ingram.
They traded for McCollum in 2022 and since then, he’s been a reliable starter that has been effective for them(wasn’t exactly that in the playoffs, though). But he did have a career year for them when it comes to efficiency.
This is something that I’ve talked about before here:
He has made himself a more effective player with the change in his shot diet, becoming more of an off-ball player, and as a result, made himself a lot more efficient. A simple change had drastic results. His eFG skyrocketed from 51.5% to 57.2%. He went from 54.1% to 59.2%.
He has always been one of the best shooters from anywhere. Whether it was a pull-up 2pt or 3pt, or off the catch, he was great to elite. Now, it’s just slightly tweaked to maximize it.
That certainly helps, but I also wonder what else can he bring them, especially at this point in his career. He’s going to be 33 years old, he’s a small guard and hasn’t been the best defender either. And for the money that he makes, it’s tough to justify this — he’s making 33 million this year and 30 the following season.
Will he continue to tweak and improve his game even at this age(he clearly showed that he could last year) to raise their ceiling? Maybe another question is whether that’s even enough.
McCollum is a solid player, but he’s not a player who changes things for teams when they have so many other issues or holes. And right now, he has been leading the team in touches, time of possessions, and amount of times he’s dribbling. He has been their ball handler.
With Ingram, there are a lot more questions there. He’s only 27 years old and has shown to be a really good player, but a really good player that has his flaws that isn’t at the elite level is a good way to remain mediocre.
The team is already not looking to give him the extension, and rightfully so. That is, again, another good way to remain mediocre with little to no flexibility to improve without blowing something up.
What’s frustrating about Ingram is that there is a clear path to get better. He has all of the tools. He has certain skills that you can’t teach. He does have the ability to create all kinds of shots that he wants. But it’s about how all of that is used together and in what way.
With what he’s doing now, he’s great at raising the floor of the team. With his ball handling, shot creation, and pretty damn good passing, he’s able to have a good offense around him. But he’s also not at an elite level in that department.
A lot of that has to do with his preference for those mid-range shots, particularly the long mid-range. Here’s his shot profile and percentages:
Rim: 72.1% with 17.6% frequency
Short mid: 48.5% with 30.0%
Long mid: 47.1% with 28.6%
Corner 3pt: 36.3% with 3.2%
Above the break 3pt: 35.4% with 20.5%
In his two most preferred areas(almost 60% of his shots), he’s shooting around 48%. That’s not going to end up being good where it’s relying on those kinds of jumpers. That’s what stops him from being an elite option that you can build around offensively, despite how good he is at those areas and everything else. Then there are some other questions about his fit with better players or with fewer touches with the ball — he holds the ball the most on the team with 4.01 average seconds.
Arguably the biggest question that decides how good this team can and will be is what will happen with Ingram.
Is he going to remain a similar kind of player with how he’s being used or will he see a change similar to McCollum? Maybe we’ll see a significant increase in his catch-and-shoot? He only had 15.6% of his shots as C&S 3pt. The only players lower on the team were Valanciunas, Cody Zeller, and Williamson.
Or will the team decide to move on from him to fully build around Williamson that addresses whatever need he needs?
The biggest change of the off-season was bringing in Murray. I’m confused. I don’t know where this came from, what the thought process was, or what this was meant to address. Not once, did I think that the Pelicans need another ball handler that is inefficient, doesn’t get to the rim, or the line, and is in a similar boat as Ingram.
I don’t even know how to go about this. This complicates things and maybe Pelicans fans will have more ideas for this because I’m trying to see how this would all work.
What does Murray do that it makes sense to have him play with any of those players together? We’ve seen the issues with him and Young! Will that be any different with two other players that demand the ball(I’m excluding McCollum in this scenario assuming he may be more off-ball)?
Or how likely is it that Murray will change his entire game to make the fit better?
Are they going to run Murray-McCollum-Ingram-Murphy/Jones-Williamson?
Is that the lineup? Or is either Murphy or Jones on the bench? Is McCollum going to the bench? Just writing this out is making my head go UGH thinking about how this can work.
Because looking at Murray the last three years(two with the Hawks and one with the Spurs), he’s a ball-dominant player with a preference in the mid-range, that’s an okay passer and a not-so-reliable 3pt shooter that also doesn’t get a lot of C&S 3pt. He doesn’t finish well or often without the ball inside the arc.
If he’s going to be asked to be the ball handler, what is that going to look like with someone who does the same work as Ingram:
Rim: 58.3% with 20.8% frequency
Short mid: 48.1% with 28.4%
Long mid: 49.5% with 12.8%
Corner 3pt: 43.4% with 9.3%
Above the break 3pt: 33.9% with 28.5%
He does have a slightly better profile and is more off-ball, but over 40% of his offense comes from in those exact areas. He also gets a lot fewer free throws than Ingram! 4.5 per 100 vs 7.2.
Maybe the rotations will make this somewhat work, but then the issue will come up in what happens with all of them together. And how will all of them mean for the defensive end?
There’s just so many questions on how everything will fit.
Also interesting that the trio of Williamson, McCollum, and Ingram were -2.2 with a 115.8 offensive rating. Williamson does his thing with 24.6 points per 75 possessions on 60.9% eFG and 63.8% TS but it’s mostly Ingram that is struggling.
But take Ingram out of that trio, it goes to +5.2 with a 120.4 offense. Or vice-versa, take Williamson out, it goes to +9.2 with a 120.6 offense. Or again, take McCollum out and it’s +11.2 with a 121.6 offense! What’s going on with all three of them? Is that just a blip or a trend? And how will that work adding Murray?
I wonder if the defense will also continue to be how it was. The team has been eighth and sixth in these two seasons. They forced a lot of turnovers being sixth and eighth. They rebound the ball well being sixth and fifth.
There’s also the question of bigs. They have a rookie Missi and Daniel Theis! Is that it? Is that the rotation? Will any of them play with Williamson or is he playing full center? Are you playing both Jones and Murphy together to have that size? Fun stat! With Murphy and Jones, they were +9.2 with a 109.1 defense! But they let stuff at the rim and couldn’t defend the rim.
Speaking of those two, what’s next for them?
Jones has been one of the best defenders in the league now. He’s definitely going to have a key role on this team because of it. But what made his impact even bigger was the significant jump as a 3-point shooter. In his first two seasons, he shot 33% but that jumped to 42% on higher volume! He’s shooting 48% from the corners! This alone changes everything for him.
Murphy had an unfortunate start to the year but still picked it up as usual. He was my pick for taking a leap this year after what he did last year. He continued to do the same. He upped his 3-point volume to almost 13 shots per 100 and still shooting 38. He has over 70% 3pt rate! But he’s still efficient inside the arc, too, shooting over 60%. He’s a very efficient player. But is there a next gear that he can reach? Can he add some on-ball creation and more facilitating?
Finally, there are some younger players Jordan Hawkins and Missi. Right now, I’m not expecting anything major from either of them and I’m not sure how much help they will provide in the big picture.
Predictions
45-50 win team
Floor(worst case scenario): Play in team
Ceiling(best case scenario): 5th seed
So, the Pelicans will have a lot, and I mean a lot of questions waiting to be answered and plenty of areas to tweak, experiment with, and look to improve. There are contract extension decisions to be made. There are possibly more trades depending on how the season goes.
I think this team is going to be the toughest one to predict because of all of this. There’s too much going on to get a grip on anything.
There are questions regarding the top player, the health, the fit, potential trades to their two highest-paid players, rotations, and potential improvement from others.
But in the end, they’ll likely be in a similar spot as they were this year. The addition of Murray is going to be difficult to integrate and that will make the season a bit choppy and bumpy as they figure it out. I’m not buying into the fit with all of the players and I don’t know much better they are.
Williamson is going to be Williamson. I’m predicting another All-Star, All-NBA caliber season.
The issues come with predicting what everyone else is going to be like and that’s where I’m holding back on this team. Right now, I’m having them locked in the play-in.