Since the Birds are popping off and flapping, there seems to be a lot more traffic on the board with people who may not have followed the team through the whole year or ever.

Welcome, and hopefully we can keep questions in here. I’ll try to update the main post fairly often if this thread sticks around.

I. How do the playoffs work?
II. Who is on our team/Where is Zion?
III. Roster Rules and Guidelines
IV. Trades/Free Agency Guidelines

Found on Page 2:
V. Draft/Lottery system and how it effects the Pelicans
VI. Pelicans Culture and Lingo

I. How do the playoffs work? What is the play-in

1. NBA grants the top 8 teams in each conference playoff berths. The teams in each conference are seeded 1-8 based on record.

2. However, with the onset of COVID, the NBA added a play-in tournament for teams who finish 7-10 in the regular season to determine the last two playoff teams for each conference. 7 plays 8 for the 7th seeded spot, 9 plays 10 and the winner of this game plays loser of 7v8 to determine the 8th seeded spot.

Ex. In the Western Conference, teams 7-10 were as follows: Minnesota, LA Clippers, New Orleans, San Antonio. Minnesota beat LA, New Orleans beat San Antonio, and New Orleans then beat LA for the final spot.

3. The NBA playoff bracket is a lot like March Madness. There is no reseeding after each round like the NFL does. With that said the winner of the Pels/Suns series will play either Utah or Dallas. Memphis/Minnesota, Denver/Golden State would not come into play until the conference finals.

4. Playoff results do not affect the draft order. It is solely based off regular season records. Draft will be detailed further below

5. Playoff Bracket

II. Who is on our team/Where is Zion?

1. Zion is not playing in the Suns series from all accounts. He has been playing in light scrimmages against guys like Tony Snell, Garrett Temple and I’m sure Gary Clark and Jared Harper are out there too since they can’t play in the playoffs due to their contract. Other members of scrimmage include guys on the coaching staff and ball boys.

Until Zion starts getting rep with rotation guys who are actually playing, I think it’s safe to assume he remains out. There hasn’t been any indication from the team that he will playing in the next week.

2. Brandon Ingram, CJ McCollum and Jonas Valanciunas are the three best players. The supporting cast is mostly made up of three rookies: Trey Murphy, Herb Jones, Jose Alvarado and guys like Larry Nance and Jaxson Hayes.

Ingram and Hayes landed on the team through the Anthony Davis trade. Ingram is an elite scorer and All-star caliber player while Hayes is a 21-year-old deer on ice who is probably the best athlete on the team and runs around trying to dunk the ball on everyone’s head.

CJ and Nance came over to the team midseason in a trade with Portland. CJ has made the playoffs every year of his 9-year career with Portland/New Orleans and was Damian Lillard’s side kick. He’s a career 20-point scorer with a great 3-point shot and has been playing point guard since arriving. Nance is a versatile big-man who has playoff and finals experience with the Cavaliers. He’s been huge in wins over the Clippers and Suns so far.

As for Jonas, he looks like a character from John Wick. He’s a big arse dude who is fairly well-rounded and is a double/double machine.

The rookies are led by Herb Jones, who is one of the best defensive players in the NBA as a rookie. He’s a second round pick from Alabama who wasn’t expected to contribute too much this year but has found himself starting since game 2 of the season. Trey Murphy was our first round pick and is a knock down 3-point shooter and is extremely tall and long. Alvarado was undrafted and pretty much had a part-time roster spot until the last week of the regular season. His specialty is camouflaging himself in the backcourt and stealing the ball from unsuspecting players. And, Yes, he can shoot.

3. Pelicans Roster

4. Pelicans Stats

III. Roster Rules and Guidelines

Contributions are from cgrand:

1. There are 15 players on an NBA roster. There is no such thing as "injured reserve"; if a player has a guaranteed contract, and they all do, for the sake of this discussion, he is on the roster and one of the 15 until his contract expires. If a player gets hurt, tough shite. If he sucks and doesn't play, tough shite.

2. Outside of the 15 a team can sign two more players on two-way contracts. Those players can play in a limited number of NBA regular season games and G-League games. Those are the only players on a team’s G-League affiliate that the parent team controls. Every other player on the G-League team can be signed by any NBA team at any time

Ex. Jose Alvarado and Gary Clark were the pelicans two-way guys for the season. However, guys on two-way contracts are not eligible for the postseason. Pelicans signed Alvarado to a full-time contract the last week of the regular season to make sure he would be able to play in the playoffs. Jared Harper was then signed to a two-way contract in his place.

3. Gayle Benson owns the Birmingham Squadron, which is the Pelicans G-League affiliate.

4. Teams cannot draft & stash in the G-League, they must be signed to the 15-man roster or a two-way contract before being placed on the G-League roster.

IV. Trades/Free Agency

1. Trades can take place from July 1 in a given year until the trade deadline (typically 2nd week of Feb). If its not during those dates, no trades.

2. Free Agency begins July 1 and continues until the last day of the regular season. Once the playoffs start, teams are no longer able to sign free agents for the current season.

ETA: Since the thread had a lot of support, I made this post more visually appealing, I hope, and formatted some things so that they are easier to read. Ran out of characters so I had to make another post which can be found on Page 2.

This post was edited on 4/21/22 at 10:42 pm