How many more games until Zion returns?

People are putting way too much stock in the "we would have beaten 'em if" rant. The Pelicans are a young team. They'll play good teams on the back end of a road trip (like the Lakers Wednesday night) tough. Lose to sub .500 teams. That's what young teams do. They aren't going to come within 15 points of a rested upper echelon team at home much less on the road.

You underestimate how much Zion's presence will open everything up for everyone else, especially at the end of games. Teams wont be able to defensively crowd the 3 pt line against us like OKC did, because Zion will poster the poor sap they leave inside

I'd put us at having at least 5 more wins if we had a healthy Zion

Exactly...

This is why I don't see why there are so many doom and gloom posters. I guess they just had their expectations too high, even after Zion's injury

When Zion and Favors are back and the schedule goes from one of the hardest to one of the easiest in the second half, I think we're gonna see a lot of "this team has figured it out" type posts.

quote:

---

People are putting way too much stock in the "we would have beaten 'em if" rant.

---

I halfway agree with this. The thing, though, is that we have lost so many games by such a small margin that having someone as good as Zion would have tilted the game AT LEAST a few points in our favor.

I agree with that. This team is closer than people think to being pretty good.

The Jrue/JJ/BI/Kenrich/Jaxson lineup has played 73 minutes (most common lineup by far). They have a 121.3 ORtg and a 107.5 DRtg for a NetRtg of +13.8. Our bench needs to improve. Imagine when Zion and Favors are getting the minutes instead of Okafor and Melli, and the bench guys are Zo/Jaxson/Kenrich/Hart/Moore.

I also don’t think this team is as cursed as we think when it comes to injuries. I think Nelson and crew are being unbelievably cautious with everyone. When the games start to matter I think we will have a smaller injury report. The training staff is playing the long game and is not concerned about sacrificing wins right now.

There is a lot to like about this core moving forward. The Ringer did a podcast the other day ranking players under 25. They had Zion top 5 and BI top 10. How many other teams can say that? Plus we have Jaxson who is ahead of schedule, some good vets in Jrue and JJ, no bad contracts, solid 3 and D guys in Kenrich and Hart, the Lakers picks until 2025, a great owner and front office, etc.

A year ago we had AD ruining our season, Dell Demps as our GM, and Mrs. B running the team like a stepchild. I know the season has not started like we wanted but this team is headed for something that could be really great in a pretty short period of time.

Our fan base is very reactionary to the outcome of individual games instead of the overall trend of improvement. This is a multi-year process. We were never going to figure it all out 20 games into the post-AD era with this many injuries and a really unforgiving schedule.

quote:

---

The Ringer did a podcast the other day ranking players under 25. They had Zion top 5 and BI top 10

---

zions ft% and 3 pt % still 0.