Pels Life
Breaking 🚨 #Pelicans news
— Fletcher Mackel (@FletcherWDSU) January 3, 2023
Zion out at least 3 weeks pic.twitter.com/EM96UFgpk9
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Pels Life
Breaking 🚨 #Pelicans news
— Fletcher Mackel (@FletcherWDSU) January 3, 2023
Zion out at least 3 weeks pic.twitter.com/EM96UFgpk9
oh this is brutal. just when he was playing at a truly MVP level.
Welcome to the Jaxson Hayes era now. Hey has played well this season.
Schedule about to get brutal too.
Even though they say 3 weeks let's just say he misses the entire month of January. That's 15 games left this month with 6 at home and 9 on the road, i see 5-6 winnable games and the rest i could see as a loss. I didn't include BI yet cause God knows when he's coming back then still has to get acclimated to game conditioning. We could end up 28/29 wins with 23/22 loss record by that time.
Houston felt a like trap game, but now it's a legit must win with this upcoming stretch. Would love to see them go .500 without Zion, but this could get dark. #Pelicans need BI, bad.
— Herb Jones, Fishing Enthusiast (@The_Fallon) January 4, 2023
The hope was we would have both healthy but at least we should be able to keep one of Zion and BI healthy if the other is injured.
We really need Brandon to show up and flex his skills asap.
"..but there's Baron dribbling the ball for 20 seconds, hoisting bad 3s and single-handedly killing them in close games. It's like somebody shrunk Antoine Walker and gave him his own team."
- Bill Simmons (2006)
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
"People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid."
- Soren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
It’s 3 weeks till he gets a review not when he returns. Know the Griff system. No player returns on time. In fact I would not doubt Zion does not return till March for the final run.
The role guys tend to step up in these situations so let’s see where the storm takes us. CJ has proven he can run the team with BI and Zion out. We often play better basketball in general without relying on them. We should be okay.
I'm not going to speculate myself about a return date, but the first part is generally true. Even if he gets that review in 3 weeks and is cleared to return, we also know it's Pels protocol to allow for a few games worth of ''ramping up'' in practice - so even though they say a review in 3 weeks, we can safely assume a minimum time of 4 weeks before he's back.
Of course, players do sometimes have miracle speed recoveries, but we have no real reason to expect that.
Basketball.
https://clutchpoints.com/pelicans-zi...ate-from-shams
Comment from Woj saying it was not a mild strain and would expect him to be out a month plus. This could be a long extended absence.
My mindset right now: This was always a building year for me, not one I was expecting us to be an actual contender. On that level, I feel very good about this team and its direction. If we get BI back, we are basically running back the team from last year that clawed back into relevancy and got into the play-in. If we could just compete at that level, we should be able to hover around or just below 0.500 during the stretch without Zion. I just want to see us in the race if/when we get Zion back, and see how far we can push. Nothing about the long term vision for this team has changed for me, and I'm looking forward to see how some of the younger guys can grow with the increased role and expectations, in particular Trey and Dyson.
My concern for the next month is how do we get points in the paint? Sure we can get them on the fast break but most of our drives to the basket have come from Zion. We'll get the occasional put back but this makes us very much an outside shooting team. Unless, we change our mindset and force the ball in the paint, not so much on post ups but more driving the lane. We have some long SG/SF so we must do this. Otherwise, teams will pack the paint and make us beat them with jumpers.
Pels just put up 45 points, the most points of any quarter this season. We will miss Zion, but we are still a good team. Its crazy to think but this might even end up helping us by letting other guys gain confidence that can pay off in the playoffs with everyone healthy...
Last night's game was wildly entertaining. Sure, the Rockets suck, but our squad played hard and unselfishly. \
Definitely a tough stretch coming up, but I like our chances of finishing the month of January still in the top 4 of the West. We should be getting more BI updates soon. Larry too.
If we can go 5-5 over the next 10 games, I'll take that and run. Should be able to pick up wins against Pistons, Magic, and Wizards but beyond that every game is a complete uphill battle.
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