Pelicans rankings in the division.

[stevemadden504]

Right now we're number 2 in the west, I know it's early but I'm pretty proud of that. Scary thing is team still has a lot of growing to do. If we can get healthy and stay healthy we should be able to sustain this going into the all-star break.

[Pelicanidae]

The West is so volatile right now - if you look in the win column, the 8th seed still has 13 wins compared to our 15 it's a wide range.

That said, our net rating is so good that it's hard for me to picture a huge collapse across the season outside of the worst injury problems, fingers crossed we avoid that this year.

I predicted we'd be something like 4-6th seed this season and right now I'm feeling pretty good about that. I think 4 is very achievable, and potentially even higher could be possible. Wouldn't shock me if we finished the year top 3.

[bradael]

Starting to look a lot like 07/08, in both conferences. Runaway top two seeds in the East with Boston at the top.

And nearly every team in the playoff race in the West being within a couple games of each other. 1st and 6th seeds were only separated by 2 games in 07/08. That year also had a ton of last second trades in the West at the deadline because of how close everything was.

[Pelicanidae]

In 2007-08, Pels ranked:

ORtg: 5th (111.5)
dRtg: 7th (105.7)
Net Rating: 5th (+5.8)
Pace: 89.9 (26th out of 30)
FG%: 8th (46.6%)
3pt%: 3rd (38.9%)
3PA: 8th (19.8 per game)
Rbds: 16th (41.8)
Asts: 13th (21.8)
Stls: 8th (7.8)
Blk: 28th (3.9)
TOV: 3rd (11.9)
Fouls: 1st (18.7)

Season leader in BPM: Chris Paul, +10.4 (.284 WS/48), age 22
Record through 24 games: 15 - 9

This year:

ORtg: 6th (115.4)
dRtg: 3rd (108.5)
Net Rating: 2nd (+6.8)
Pace: 99.9 (12th)
FG%: 5th (48.4%)
3pt%: 10th (37.2%)
3PA: 27th (30.6) < --- side note, if that's not proof of the 3pt explosion, I don't know what is. Shooting 11 more a game than in 07-08, but now bottom 5 in volume.
Rbds: 6th (45.3)
Asts: 9th (26.9)
Stls: 2nd (8.8)
Blk: 19th (4.7)
TOV: 18th (14.8)
Fouls: 6th (19.7)

Season leader in BPM: Zion Williamson, +6.1 (.220 WS/48), age 22
Record through 24 games: 16-8


I've bolded the one that was better for each year, compared to their own league. So for example, even though the 07-08 team had a better dRtg overall, it was 7th in the league that year, so this year's score is bolded because it's 3rd in the league.

[ml wave]

Also interesting that our current FG% is better despite shooting way more 3s at a lower %.