November 9th - New Orleans Pelicans @ Chicago Bulls - 5-5

[AusPel]

Two minute report will actually show Zion fouled Derozen on that play, but that wont be remembered by fans when they are on their "refs are against us" narrative

Pepperidge remembers

[hornetsrebirth]

Bailed out by Derozan's butterfingers. Good to get a win but these free throw misses are going to kill our season if we don't get a handle on it.

Zion and Herb both missed 1 in the last minute of the game but they were both 7 of 8 on the whole game so not that bad

[MichaelMcNamara]

I cant believe the Pels were really gonna take Dieng over Sharpe if Dyson went 7th. Unreal. Griff is lucky the Blazers took Sharpe or that would be an insane L on his record

[6warddude]

The problem is that right now all of our wins are coming ''without being at our best'' because we're not playing well most of the time. Some of that is due to the players themselves - Zion not being aggressive enough, CJ can't hit anything, Trey's shot has deserted him, Herb fouls, etc - and some is due to Willie being kind of clueless sometimes when it comes to the on-court play, but in either case, this team is underperforming regularly. At some point, if you underperform every game, that's not under anymore - it's just who you are. And the team cannot be pleased with that.

the scary part is , when this team start to click on defense,,rotations and players attitudes then it will be a beautiful thing to watch how deep this team can go..

[PELICANSFAN]

But we have the greatest shooting coach of all time. Must not teach clutch FTs. Maybe he will work on that next

7 of 8 and you are going to ********** about the one miss. Funny how you did not complain as much when DD went 0-2.

[MichaelMcNamara]

7 of 8 and you are going to ********** about the one miss. Funny how you did not complain as much when DD went 0-2.

I actually did. Asked why nobody mentioned it

My point has ALWAYS been that Fred isnt all great or all bad, but I have never seen anyone in this sport get only love. Nobody - not a player, a coach, a FO exec, a reporter, nobody. Except Fred Vinson.

So, I am here to bring balance. You're welcome.

[PELICANSFAN]

I cant believe the Pels were really gonna take Dieng over Sharpe if Dyson went 7th. Unreal. Griff is lucky the Blazers took Sharpe or that would be an insane L on his record

Isn't this the same Griffin that you said was going to trade Haliburton if he fell to us? Not sure how he could have redeemed himself from that.

[MichaelMcNamara]

Isn't this the same Griffin that you said was going to trade Haliburton if he fell to us? Not sure how he could have redeemed himself from that.

To be fair, he was gonna trade the pick. Not exactly the same, but yeah - the eval was way off on both guys. He got lucky both those guys got taken ahead of him, because if they made it to him and he passed, that goes on your record. At least now, he can deny it

[hornetsrebirth]

I actually did. Asked why nobody mentioned it

My point has ALWAYS been that Fred isnt all great or all bad, but I have never seen anyone in this sport get only love. Nobody - not a player, a coach, a FO exec, a reporter, nobody. Except Fred Vinson.

So, I am here to bring balance. You're welcome.

Nobody talks about him 10 percent as often as you do. Its not balanced what you are doing.

[luckyman]

The good news is that we're probably going to need that win because tomorrow we play the 8-3 Blazers

Blazers have injury issues with Grant and Nurkic. Of course they'll tough it out and play tomorrow.

Even still, Pelicans should have a clear front line advantage.

[MichaelMcNamara]

I could see it going the other way and them resting Dame on a back to back after a win

[Pelicanidae]

Pels scoring plays in 4Q:

Ingram +2
Zion +2
Zion +2
Zion +2 FT
Trey +2 FT
Zion +2
Zion +2
Ingram +2 (play after 6-0 Bulls run)
Ingram +2
Ingram +3 FT
Herb +2 (Zion handoff)
CJ +2 (off Zion miss)
Ingram +2
Ingram +3
Ingram +2 (go-ahead for good)
Zion +1 FT
Herb +2 FT
Herb +1 FT

— Andrew Lopez (@_Andrew_Lopez) November 10, 2022

[Taker597]

Hayes being a bust really hurt this team.


Hayes and NAW were such fools gold.

[AUSSIE_PELICAN]

4-4 on a away games...that's a pass.
2-1 at home with a 6 game home stand coming up.
Need to capitalize now.

[Tin_Food]

That was all Ingram. Carried that team over the line despite a terrible night from CJ, no defensive rebounding effort from Zion, etc. Give BI his flowers

If the hypothetical trade was made for KD, and we did a Zion+ whatever for him, is the duo of Ingram and KD better than a Tatum and Brown? I'm leaning towards yes, and if so that's a serious contender.

[MichaelMcNamara]

More talent than Tatum and Brown? Yes. But they have a multiple year chemistry head start. As this season should be showing everyone, talent means less than fit and willingness to do non scoring little things

To me, the biggest benefit would be it would force CJ into his correct role, but maybe Zion gets over all his mental doubts and becomes the killer this team needs. The good thing with KD is that he is already that

[Tin_Food]

More talent than Tatum and Brown? Yes. But they have a multiple year chemistry head start. As this season should be showing everyone, talent means less than fit and willingness to do non scoring little things

To me, the biggest benefit would be it would force CJ into his correct role, but maybe Zion gets over all his mental doubts and becomes the killer this team needs. The good thing with KD is that he is already that

My pie in the sky dream for Zion was that he could become another Barkley. But he just doesn't rebound. So he's probably 120% LJ. Which is fine but you're not doing much with that.

Chemistry might suffer initially with KD, but it's not like it's amazing right now anyway. His fit is pretty good, the best of any "gettable" superstar. You just hope he has a couple years of reasonable defence left in him.

[Fedupfan]

?We still $hit on defense? pic.twitter.com/gDMwT4lOEW

— Mike Cyprien (@CoachCyp_NOLA) November 10, 2022

[MichaelMcNamara]

My pie in the sky dream for Zion was that he could become another Barkley. But he just doesn't rebound. So he's probably 120% LJ. Which is fine but you're not doing much with that.

Chemistry might suffer initially with KD, but it's not like it's amazing right now anyway. His fit is pretty good, the best of any "gettable" superstar. You just hope he has a couple years of reasonable defence left in him.

Which LJ? Because he isnt close to early Hornets LJ IMO. That guy was a dog and ate the glass too

I am sorry - one defensive rebound with that size and athleticism is a joke. Bulls missed 39 shots last night. 25 of which, Zion was on the floor. You get 4% of the opponents misses? Thats insane.

Kid can do a lot well, but again the question for him isnt 'Will he become good?' ..... it's 'Will he become one of the dominant players in the league?'

And that cant just mean scoring. There is a gap between fringe All Star and MVP candidate, a big one. And I think he is much, much more likely to be the former than the latter

[DarkHornet]

Hayes being a bust really hurt this team.


Hayes and NAW were such fools gold.

Hayes being a bust is whatever. You're not going to hit on every single pick, and Hayes was a gamble on upside that has apparently not paid off. What would be a bigger concern is if we double down and don't cut our losses with him. His minutes have appropriately been going elsewhere, and I don't think he'll be signed to a second contract.

[PELICANSFAN]

Hayes being a bust is whatever. You're not going to hit on every single pick, and Hayes was a gamble on upside that has apparently not paid off. What would be a bigger concern is if we double down and don't cut our losses with him. His minutes have appropriately been going elsewhere, and I don't think he'll be signed to a second contract.

Wonder if he will get some run in Birmingham to maybe put up some gaudy stats. Maybe we get lucky and he catches some team's attention.

[MichaelMcNamara]

If I had to rank ideas that I see often spread that drive me the most crazy, its this idea that players can raise their trade value with a good stretch here or there. And I am not even talking about in the G League, which is a whole new level. I mean, in actual NBA games. Like, this idea that we are playing Graham to raise his trade value is bonkers. As if FO's are as dumb as a casual fan and will ignore all the other data and jsut go, "Look, he hit 5 three's the other night, he is good!!"

None of that is real. Ever. Front offices have numerous scouts and analytics people feeding them every piece of information you can imagine, over a full timeline. They discuss almost any trade for weeks and put it up against the 15 other possible trades they can make. They arent influenced, at all, by one little stretch of good play. Or even a few weeks. Westbrook's been good off the bench lately....you think anybody wants him now? All the other stuff will be ignored?

Of course not. You see how crazy it is when its a guy on another team. But when the guy is on YOUR team, you hope it can be true. Ugh, it drives me mad. Rant over.

[pelafanatic]

Hayes being a bust really hurt this team.


Hayes and NAW were such fools gold.

I feel bad for Hayes and NAW. Really came into this org at the wrong time with a string of 3 different staffs in 3 years. It’s always more about situations for these young dudes than it is about talent. Two guys that really needed to go to a team with no expectations so they could work through mistakes, and instead got stuck with Gentry and SVG

[MichaelMcNamara]

I dont think Hayes could have worked out in any universe. NAW, maybe. But Hayes is broken up top and that isn't getting fixed regardless of the staff. NAW is a victim of doing too many things average or slightly better, nothing great. I could see a world where we just gave him one thing to do. And then moved onto the next thing. And then the next. The issue was we kept asking different things from him at different points

I think in 3 of 10 universes, NAW becomes a 5th-7th man. I dont think Hayes becomes anything of real value, regardless of where he got drafted.

[Freyfamilyreuni]

Zion being a poor rebounder is a head scratcher until you play close attention to how he plays. Way too much standing around and watching when he’s not directly involved in the play. And I don’t think it’s a conditioning issue.