re: This could be the worse team in nba history

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no i don't expect them to win without BI and Zion often, but it's not impossible

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It’s not impossible, we should have won at least 2 maybe 3 of them if we were fricked by inefficient guard play, bad refs, or fluky injuries

But expecting this young team with a brand new head coach to go out there and beat other teams not dealing with injuries is just asinine. We obviously do suck more without Zion and BI than the Sixers without Embiid, that was never even a question, they have better players. Just saying, “oh life isnt fair you should still be good without 2 allstars and if you arent, well, you suck” is an illogical take. I’m sure you can find cases of teams rallying without stars, but the I’d bet a lot of money the vastly overwhelming data shows that teams without their 2 best players have an awful record and perform drastically below the healthy normal

In a healthy, ideal world with BI and Zion through these first 10 games, I’m convinced we would be at least .500, maybe better

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This could be the worst team in nba history

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The version we saw last 2 nights is definitely the worst team in the NBA. What's ridiculous is that Herb Jones being healthy may well have won both games for us. So despite the dreadful talent on the court, they're playing more inspired basketball than I can remember in a while. For a Pelicans team that is getting off to this bad of a start, the consistent effort is really impressive.

I think that is why my frustrations watching this team are of a different variety than in years past. In the SVG or Gentry eras, I would have turned all of these games off early and probably wouldn't have even tuned in last night. Like, it's frustrating, but I can actually see the team, and indivual players, growing and figuring out thier role and how they can help. Also everything Willie Green says is like a breath of fresh air.

Honestly, this season feels a lot like ADs rookie year to me. The talent is far better overall now, but the version we've been seeing is pretty similar in terms of winning. I think all of my feelings are because of Willie. Willie reminds me a lot of Monty. Monty did have one good squad immediately, but he was essentially at the helm of a rebuild for his whole time here. The 12-13 team also didn't win a lot of games, but again I watched them all with a very different type of frustration to these recent seasons. You could see that Monty was building something. It was also obvious that Monty was a smart young coach who could communicate with players better than most. He was bringing on AD slowly, but by 2014 he was having maybe his best year as a pro. I'm still butthurt that we fired him after all he did was consistently improve the team year after year, but I think we may have another one.

Anyway, long post to essentially just say "yeah that team last night sucks, but we're on the right track and will be great if Z and BI can ever get healthy."

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I'm just not a fan of excuses. Every year we make excuses as to why we don't win more. Every team deals with injuries, some more than others, but every team does it. The Sixers had a stretch last year where Embiid missed 11 straight games, costing him the MVP probably, and they won 8 of those 11. The Warriors played without their all star last year, and Steph and Draymond each missed 9 games, and they still finished well over .500 with a bunch of scrubs and young players playing with Steph and mister triple single.

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Sixers losing Embiid and Warriors losing Klay are not the same as the pelicans losing both BI and Zion. Plus the warriors were only above .500 because Steph Curry averaged like 40ppg over the last month of the season, they were pretty garbage all year otherwise.

I don't put the first few games on anyone being injured, I'm not sure we win any of those even with a healthy roster. Not because of a lack of talent, but because of over half of the minutes are going to dudes who are brand new to the Pelicans and the coaching staff is also brand new. I don't care who you are, you are going to struggle with that much turnover. Even the Miami Heat struggled early in the first year of Lebron/Wade/Bosh, it's just the nature of learning how to play together.

As the next few games progressed, it seemed like they were figuring it out more and more, but still had turnover issues and sloppy halfcourt sets sprinkled in a good bit.

In my opinion, the team hasn't looked like it's fully gelled for a full game yet, but the chemistry has been good enough to win for the last 3-4 games. Unfortunately, we also didn't have BI for those games, so we lost tight ones. I also don't think Herb's value when BI and Z aren't available can be overstated. We were in control a couple of nights ago and the second Herb went out, it all went to shite. His ability to stop the best player on the opposing team is critical. The last 2 may well have been W's if he was there.

So, is there a lack of talent? I don't think so, but it's kind of tough to tell when they've only just started playing well together and the top 2 players and defensive stopper are gone.

Going back to your example of the warriors, how many games do you think they win in the same scenario? Meaning no Steph, no Klay, no Draymond. That team isn't winning shite

Honestly we aren't the worse team.
Detroit is the worst team.

Casey is destroying Hayes, Cunningham, Garza etc....

Cunningham is an on-ball and playmaker player, Casey Plays Cade off-ball...

It’s not even that hard to imagine how we could be better. Imagine you had Deandre Hunter to slide into the starting line up for Zion or a Darius Garland or Cole Anthony coming in as a back up point guard. Even if you had solid role guys like Hachimura or Washington as first bigs off the bench you’d be in much better shape.

Face it, our picks aren’t producing and we didn’t bring in enough high quality vets for depth. Our roster looks overmatched every night and it’s mainly our bench that’s doing us in. This is on the front office as talent evaluators.

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Sixers losing Embiid and Warriors losing Klay are not the same as the pelicans losing both BI and Zion.

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Huh? The Sixers have been winning without Simmons and Embiid, how is that not literally the same thing?

And unlike the Pels, the Sixers have 90 million dollars tied up in three players, and no recent lottery picks. They have a legit excuse to have a top heavy roster, yet their surrounding cast can win games better than a Pels team that was gifted a haul of draft picks and a large amount of cap space given the low cost of our two stars combined.

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So, is there a lack of talent? I don't think so, but it's kind of tough to tell when they've only just started playing well together and the top 2 players and defensive stopper are gone.

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I just do not understand how people can continue to repeat this.

Outside of BI, Zion, Graham, Jonas, and maybe Herb situationally, no one else on this roster would be in a playoff rotation on any good team. And Graham is better suited as sixth man, and as good as Jonas is offensively he is a sieve in the pick n roll defense.

Deep and talented rosters don’t go 1-7 without their two stars, and this team, based on our circumstance, should have the most talented and deep team in the league but we don’t because of mismanagement.

It’s time people just admit that. And hope Gayle recognizes it as well and does something about it this off-season.

This is not a defense of griffin but he brought in good players this off-season in Graham and Val. He tried to get a big fish in FA and it didn’t happen and never will .

The draft picks are the problem . This was the year for them to show growth so that Pels would want to keep them or grow their value to a point they could be used in a trade for a better player .

As usual , our players value only decrease.

Steph and Klay combined salary: 82 million dollars

Zion and Bi combined salary: 39 million dollars.

The excuse making falls entirely apart the moment you do even the most superficial of investigations into either situation.

Zion is a top 20 player on an 11 million dollar contract, any competent organization would be awash in talented role players and depth under that sort of luxury scenario. Yet we currently can’t find 5 players on this roster that would be worthy starters for a playoff basketball team. That should be grounds for front office criminality given the embarrassment of riches this team had in it’s possession

I’m negative because this team has not done much of anything to earn positivity. I’ve paid for my share of season tickets, merch, family and friend outings and taxes that subsidize this franchise, I and every fan have the right to be upset with the product we’ve financially contributed to.

Sixers are missing two all stars my man, Simmons has not played a game and Embiid is not there.

It is literally a perfect allegory to our situation except the Sixers lacked the resources we’ve had to build out our roster(cap space, draft picks) and yet STILL have a better supporting roster at this point.

It seems like what most of you all are attempting to do is this slight of hand trick, you won’t admit just how dogshit this roster is outside three or so players given the embarrassment of riches afforded to us, so instead you avoid addressing it head on by pointing out other teams struggle without their top players.

Which yes, no one would deny that, but it doesn’t retroactively justify they shite roster we have fielded around our top guys. Especially when we are/were uniquely positioned to have an incredibly talented and deep team had we just not literally fricked up pretty much every decision we’ve made sans a few token ones people point to in this off-season, one that was still marred in absolute incompetence and mismanagement in several important ways

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Yet we currently can’t field a group of 5 starters that are worthy to play playoff basketball. 

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vegas sort of agrees. has pels o/u at 38.5 wins.
38 might get 9th or 10th and a game or two under playoff conditions.