Originally Posted by
Pelicanidae
Nah, don't need to say that. Kings were a top 15 defensive team this year, not great but not terrible. We had their number, that just happens sometimes. Don't need to discredit the positives of this team to acknowledge the negatives.
Pelicans, as constructed, are a solid team. They will win 45-50 games every year if this squad is kept together in even semi-reasonable health. The talent is there, the fit is not. They'll beat up on terrible teams and get their wins 50/50 against mid-teams, and pick up a few big wins against good teams. It'll happen.
What this team is not right now, is a contender to take on the real contenders. Without Zion, the gaps are exposed: very few people who can really create advantages with any sort of consistency. CJ is too old for it at this point, having slowed down slightly, and works best off-ball. BI's game relies on hitting difficult shots and he seems averse to creating easier ones, which means when the difficult shots aren't falling (which is more than half the time) he just can't get going in any meaningful way. And that's who you're trusting to create everything without Zion.
Team's a good regular season team, and if we had a higher seed and got to play a worse team in the first round maybe we could even steal a series. But we're not up to taking on the real teams, contending for chips, not right now. Needs change.