{"id":42866,"date":"2021-10-06T08:00:11","date_gmt":"2021-10-06T12:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=42866"},"modified":"2021-09-28T14:39:21","modified_gmt":"2021-09-28T18:39:21","slug":"new-orleans-pelicans-2021-2022-season-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2021\/10\/06\/new-orleans-pelicans-2021-2022-season-preview\/","title":{"rendered":"New Orleans Pelicans 2021-2022 Season Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The New Orleans Pelicans failed to make the post-season once again as they finished with a 31-41 record, good for the 11th seed in the conference.<\/p>\n<p>They have a good amount of talent on the team, but there&#8217;s been an issue in terms of translating that into wins. Will they make the playoffs this year?<\/p>\n<h2>New Orleans Pelicans 2021-2022 Season Preview<\/h2>\n<h3><strong>Offseason Changes<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Throughout the offseason, the Pelicans made a good amount of moves. They were able to get <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/v\/valanjo01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Jonas Valanciunas<\/strong><\/a> in exchange for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/a\/adamsst01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Steven Adams<\/strong><\/a> basically. This helps the team out a lot as he provides good spacing. This move helps <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/willizi01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Zion Williamson<\/strong> <\/a>the most.<\/p>\n<p>The Pelicans were also able to bring in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/g\/grahade01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Devonte&#8217; Graham<\/strong><\/a>. Last season, Graham averaged 14.8 points per game while shooting 37.7% from the field. He&#8217;s a solid and young point guard but it&#8217;s too soon to say whether if he&#8217;ll be able to lead this team to the post-season.<\/p>\n<p>On top of that, they were able to sign <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/t\/templga01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Garrett Temple<\/strong><\/a>, who&#8217;s a nice addition to the bench. In terms of locking in their players, they were able to re-sign <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/h\/hartjo01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Josh Hart<\/strong><\/a> to a three-year\/$38M deal and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/h\/hernawi01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Willy Hernangomez<\/strong><\/a> to a three-year deal.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, they weren&#8217;t able to land someone like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/l\/lowryky01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Kyle Lowry<\/strong><\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/p\/paulch01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Chris Paul<\/strong><\/a>. Both of whom are players that could&#8217;ve led this team to the post-season. On top of that, they lost their point guard in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/balllo01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Lonzo Ball<\/strong><\/a>. He was an up-and-coming guard in this league and losing him will prove to be huge as the season progresses.<\/p>\n<h3>New Orleans Pelicans &#8211; Expectations For This Season<\/h3>\n<p>Everyone&#8217;s expectations are different, especially for this team. That being said, the expectation for them is to contend for a spot in the play-in tournament. They have two All-Stars on their team in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/i\/ingrabr01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Brandon Ingram<\/strong><\/a> and Zion Williamson, however, they just don&#8217;t know how to win games yet.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s one thing to have talent on your team, and it&#8217;s another thing to translate that into wins. They just haven&#8217;t figured that out yet. Expect them to once again miss the post-season regardless of their contention for a spot in the play-in tournament.<\/p>\n<p>For these past few seasons, they have had plenty of talent on their team, but there wasn&#8217;t any consistency. Don&#8217;t expect the New Orleans Pelicans in the playoffs, period.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"DfqDN8KMRo1PfdlII4OWDw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1178845866\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'DfqDN8KMRo1PfdlII4OWDw',sig:'O3TV7dqeLWnVJjoYhgi6GdTeA4ICA80mQWR5FPTxMMc=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1178845866',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The New Orleans Pelicans failed to make the post-season once again as they finished with a 31-41 record, good for the 11th seed in the conference. They have a good amount of talent on the team, but there&#8217;s been an issue in terms of translating that into wins. Will they make the playoffs this year? [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3919,"featured_media":43009,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33,62],"tags":[308,1380,167,1684],"class_list":["post-42866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pelicans","category-nba","tag-brandon-ingram","tag-devonte-graham","tag-jonas-valanciunas","tag-zion-williamson"],"modified_by":"Kunning Chen, Department Manager","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3919"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}