Not good enough

Unreliable does not equate to being a star. Somebody in this franchise needs to accept the truth staring them in the face and figure it out.

They're going to have to figure out how to win on the road to stay out of the play in. Half of the remaining games are on the road. We're currently a putrid 10-19 on the road. 5 wins in the last 2 in a half months and none were against good teams.

since you have a football handle safety blitz, in honor of fencic the safety of the 85 Bears im going to explain your opener.

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With this team we gotta be better than just above 500.

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1. gotta. means must.
implies some element like duty, as if you Safety Blitz know some Great Law of reality and based on your assessment the pelicans should be better than .500.

2. heres the truth.
a. no matter how good at basketball a given team is IN YOUR GRADING SYSTEM, they can lose to the worst.
the #3 guy on other team gets hot from 3.
they make 20 of 21 free throws. it happens.
lifetime 60% huge 7 foot 275 lug makes 10 for 10 ft but only against you. He gleefully explains to sideline girl after that he never made 5 in a row in a game before, since he started at age 10 in Serbia. 10 for 10 vs you.
b. injuries. best player out. 2nd best player was out. 3rd best player has been playing with injury.
rookie out.

the injuries prevent team continuity and prevent individuals from improving.

call it bad luck.
do you have a voodoo altar?
why not start one.
take charge. heal the lame and show them the way.
its on you.

People need to think back to what this team was last year post CJ trade. Was it fun? Hell yeah, but were they a good team? Eh, not really. They went what, 18-16 after the trade? That’s a 43 win team based on averages, which in the West is a team that’s gonna be in the Play-In. Which is what they were last season and is what they currently are this season.

Where does Zion get you? 50+ wins? Higher? Sure, but that’s in a perfect world where Zion is actually on the court, which feels like something out of our dreams at this point and isn’t reality.

So with all that said, it’s quite depressing, but where they are right now is what/who they are, and it’s difficult to imagine any real upward growth unless we finally get some consistent health, which this team has never had.

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What is with all the doom and gloom?

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People think the 10 game losing streak is more representative of the current team and we're going to limp into the lottery. But BI missed most of those 10 games and the ones he was in he was shaking off a lot of rust shooting 36% or less from the field in his first 3 games back.

Once the losing streak is far enough behind the Pels and they get to where we're like 6-4 in the last 10, they'll start feeling a little better. I wouldn't expect them to get excited again until you hit that home stretch at the beginning of March followed by 2 away games at the Rockets. There's potential to be on a decent streak at that point plus hopefully you get a win over the Lakers in there. That's also possibly about the time Zion might be returning if all goes well (which it never seems to).

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We were the 1 seed in the West when healthy and then injuries(which always happen to us) hit and now we're potentially fighting just to make the play in while our best player is still injured for probably at least 1 more month. It's not exactly a time to be super positive right now.


If these injuries were a complete fluke and we were confident our best 2 players would be on the court like a Jokic going forward, you'd have a point. But they're not like a Jokic, our best 2 players are hurt...a lot.

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I get all that, but lets try to have a little perspective here. In the last decade, we've made the playoffs 3 times total. We have a great shot here to make it 2 seasons in a row. We upgraded our team with Josh Richardson. Dyson will be back after the ASB. CJ's thumb will be better. BI is playing out of his mind. Zion will hopefully be back before the playoffs.

Plenty to be optimistic about going forward - if you choose to be.

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It's all dependent on Zion's health. If he's healthy, we can make a run. If he's not, we are what we've been.

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If just BI is healthy, we are better than what we've been. We don't have that 10 game losing streak if BI is there the whole time. If BI can stay healthy until Zion gets back (big if and when for both of those obviously) I think we can be an over .500 team for the next month or so. If we play over .500 up until about 10 games left in the season, when I expect Zion to come back, we will possibly be above the play in and that will give us time for Zion and the team to get the kinks worked out and be a team that's ready for the playoffs.

That's trying to be as positive as possible. But not even counting Zion coming back, this team with a healthy everyone but Zion is still better than what they've been. BI still moves the needle. This team was not built to run without both of them. Hell no team is built to run without their two best players.

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If just BI is healthy, we are better than what we've been. We don't have that 10 game losing streak if BI is there the whole time. If BI can stay healthy until Zion gets back (big if and when for both of those obviously) I think we can be an over .500 team for the next month or so. If we play over .500 up until about 10 games left in the season, when I expect Zion to come back, we will possibly be above the play in and that will give us time for Zion and the team to get the kinks worked out and be a team that's ready for the playoffs.

That's trying to be as positive as possible. But not even counting Zion coming back, this team with a healthy everyone but Zion is still better than what they've been. BI still moves the needle. This team was not built to run without both of them. Hell no team is built to run without their two best players.

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Apologies, I should have been a little more clear, when I say "what we've been" I'm referring back to last season as well. Without Zion we're a team that has to fight to make the play-in. I've equated that to about a .53ish win percentage. So with that thought we would end up around 42-43ish wins on the year.

I'm trying to be positive, but also realistic, I can't see us above the play in by the time Zion gets back. We're a half game back from Dallas, but they'll probably get going a bit with Luka and Kyrie, and Phoenix, even with the 3rd toughest remaining schedule in the West, is adding Durant here in a few games so their play will pick up as well.

Sacramento is a team to watch. Tough schedule and seems like a strong candidate to fall down the standings.