It's an Insider article by Pelton, so I guess there's no use in linking it. It discusses the Sixers and their prospects using current data for the NBA as a whole. It is relevant to the Pelicans, as you'll see.

Excerpts (not the entire thing, mods):

History shows teams as bad as Philly take even longer just to reach .500

Last week, I showed how the draft, salary cap and other factors tend to cause teams to win in cycles. That data can be taken a step further into year-by-year winning percentages for teams that start out with various numbers of wins (or equivalent winning percentages, to account for post-lockout schedules). Looking at all seasons under the current lottery format, here's how that looks:

Evolution of Teams
Wins Year1 Year2 Year3 Year4 Year5 Year6 Year7 Year8 Year9 Year10
60+ .765 .657 .609 .573 .558 .523 .504 .507 .530 .571
55-59 .694 .643 .614 .574 .565 .540 .529 .543 .526 .502
50-54 .631 .595 .572 .548 .527 .527 .510 .482 .476 .507
45-49 .573 .545 .516 .521 .477 .479 .502 .483 .488 .476
40-44 .514 .507 .507 .487 .502 .497 .508 .507 .495 .497
35-39 .448 .456 .432 .437 .476 .504 .475 .492 .533 .526
30-34 .394 .400 .455 .470 .485 .484 .500 .508 .518 .536
25-29 .330 .407 .449 .478 .464 .459 .477 .507 .538 .500
20-24 .270 .364 .419 .500 .539 .550 .517 .493 .527 .523
<19 .194 .326 .371 .411 .433 .463 .493 .507 .437 .447

By the fifth year, four years after the original season, these numbers have mostly evened up because of the pull of parity on both extremes. But the worst of the worst teams tend to lag behind. It takes them until the eighth season -- seven years later -- to finally reach .500 as a group.

By these measures, teams that start out winning 20-24 games are as successful over the next decade as teams that start with records closer to .500.

Likelihood of Success
Wins %55 Wins Yrs >.500 Yrs >55
60+ 80 6.2 3.0
55-59 78 6.0 2.7
50-54 72 5.4 1.9
45-49 70 4.6 1.0
40-44 54 4.8 1.1
35-39 40 4.2 1.0
30-34 42 4.3 1.0
25-29 37 4.4 0.8
20-24 39 4.2 1.1
<19 15 2.9 0.3

The likelihood of reaching contention increases the better the team is originally, since less improvement is required. But because those forays into contention tend to be shorter than they are for teams that rebuild with young talent, the teams that start out winning 20-24 games average as many seasons at a 55-win level as any other group that starts with fewer than 50 wins.

While it could be nothing more than noise, 20-24 wins might represent a "sweet spot" in the standings where teams benefit from the chance to win the lottery with enough talent in place to build around a player drafted with a top pick.

For the most part, history shows that where a team starts in the standings doesn't make an enormous difference in where they end up years later. It appears execution is more important than strategy when it comes to building a championship contender. The exception is the teams that begin at the very bottom. And that's where Hinkie's plan could find trouble.

Starting from the bottom

The teams that have gone from the Drake zone to contention in the past two decades have almost uniformly struck gold in the draft. The five teams that have gotten there within six years in that span drafted Allen Iverson (1996 76ers), LeBron James (2003 Cavaliers), Chris Paul (2005 Hornets) and Blake Griffin (2009 Clippers). The lone exception, the 2008 Heat (Michael Beasley) already had a superstar on the roster in Dwyane Wade. That matches up with what Neil Paine of FiveThirtyEight found on Basketball Prospectus in 2012: Getting a star player trumps everything else in building a contender.

IMO, the relevance to the Pelicans is that we've already struck gold a second time with AD. Now we have to build, and we may not be that far away.

The question marks? EG's contract and Monty improving as an in game coach.