The New Orleans Pelicans were just given a brutal prediction for next year by ESPN.
The New Orleans Pelicans have failed to reach 30 wins in back-to-back seasons for the second time in franchise history. A lot of that has been chalked up to the number of injuries that the Pelicans have had to go through.
With a clean bill of health heading into the 26/27 season, though, the expectations aren't much higher. Actually, some think they may finish even worse than last year.
ESPN's NBA Insiders recently predicted how the East and West will finish this season as the No. 14 seed and with a 25-57 record. That would be one game worse than last year's 26 wins.
The main complaint given by ESPN writer Tim MacMahon is the obvious one. There weren't any major changes made to the roster this offseason. For most sub-30-win teams, that would be a death sentence; it's not exactly that easy for the Pelicans. This still won't be the same team that played for much of last year as a unit.
Part of the reason that there weren't many modifications, though, is that New Orleans feels like this roster is good enough to compete together. They like the amalgamation of talent they have; it just hasn't worked out together yet.
The Pelicans couldn't make many adjustments without blowing everything up because they were handcuffed by some bad contracts. The Zion Williamson, Trey Murphy and Herbert Jones core sticks together. So instead of sweeping changes, they went with some tweaks.
The most obvious difference is in coaching. Willie Green was fired early on last season and they had interim coach James Borrego running the show for most of the year. That's a big change to have to adjust to in the middle of the season.
If Jamahl Mosley and most of his Orlando Magic staff come in and win one less game with a healthy roster, no one will be happy. It took them a few years to turn it around with the Orlando Magic, but that roster was in a much worse spot.
Dejounte Murray is also basically a new player for this team, given that he played in just 14 games at the end of a lost year on staggered minutes in his return. He did look good while doing it, too, giving hope that he could have been what the lineup was missing all along.
There is also the hope that Jeremiah Fears and Derik Queen will improve from year one to year two, a natural progression. Just how much they improve is hard to nail down, but both have been hard at work this offseason.
Few outside of the building are expecting the team to make a huge turnaround this year, but winning only 25 games would be a massive failure and bring on a lot of change in New Orleans.
