How long do we have AD?

AD is here for a while

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Lastly, what positions or players are we lacking for this team to contend?

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Small Forward is the only position we are weak at. But as some advanced stats show, the two SFs on our roster, Darius Miller and Luke Babbitt are both above average defenders somehow and can actually shoot unlike Aminu.

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Is there just one piece to the puzzle that is missing

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Health is the only thing keeping us from the playoffs. Davis will need to fully grow into a superstar for us to be a title contender though(which may happen real soon)

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, or is it worse than that?

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well, we have been horribly bitten by the injury bug the last 3 years

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Please give me a brief "state of the union" for e Pelicans.

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Solid starting 5 when healthy of:
Jrue Holiday-24 year old former all-star PG
Eric Gordon-25 year old with an albatross contract
Babbitt(25) or Miller(24)-poor man's three and D wings
Anthony Davis-21yo. Soon to be 3rd best player in the league
Omer Asik-28 year old defensive center

A center like Asik was sorely missing last year. Stiemsma was a disaster and Withey/Ajinca are no more than decent backups. We gave up way too many easy layups and Asik will help put an end to that.

Lots of scoring potential off the bench that should allow us to stretch a lead or get us back into games:
Tyreke Evans-24 year old PG/SG hybrid. Big body scorer
Ryan Anderson-26 year old sharpshooter

Evans and Anderson are the perfect complements to each other and I cannot wait to see them play extended minutes together.

Last year:
Pro: We were hilariously awesome on offense when we were completely healthy.
Con: We were pretty damn terrible on defense when our best 5 players were on the floor at once.
But Our best 5 players only played 9 games together

Health=playoffs
Improved defense and Davis improvement=contender

Gordon and Evans minutes need to be staggered to make our second unit great so starting Babbitt or Miller for the first 6 minutes makes a lot of sense.

But we will most likely finish games with:
Evans
Holiday
Gordon
Anderson
Davis

which gives us 3 really good 3pt shooters, a good midrange shooter and a guy who can get to the rim at will. And all 5 are pretty good FT shooters as well, which helps.

Get your t-shirt ready..this will be the year we have the squad/health/mindset to make a run at it. It will be fun to watch, finally.

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But as some advanced stats show, the two SFs on our roster, Darius Miller and Luke Babbitt are both above average defenders

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The eye test doesn't look so kindly on them. We'll find out more this year, I guess.

Thanks to everyone for the replies. As a casual observer, it did appear that things were coming together pretty well. My impression of Gordon was that he's one of those guys who will never be healthy enough to be dependable. Is he all that crucial, or can we live without him if everyone else is healthy?

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he is not crucial at all. once he goes we will have beaucoup money to get a legit SF and fill out the bench pretty good. hopefully he dominates this year so either he'll opt out or we can trade his expiring

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He's pretty crucial this season. He'll need to make open 3's and not be a complete black hole on defense. If he's injured we'd have to rely on Tyreke playing the 2 and some clusterfrick of Salmons, Babbitt, and Miller getting the minutes at SF. Unless they try to put Ryno there, which would create a huge hole on defense and eliminate our bench depth.

Agreed that he isn't needed after this season, though.