Why the Zion-less Pelicans Have Reason to Be Optimistic

New Orleans doesn’t have its franchise player, but CJ McCollum and a surprise starting lineup are finding success.

After months of ominous rumors, medical (non)updates and a basketball product that’s teetered between irrelevant and sad, the Pelicans suddenly have reason to feel optimistic about their short-term future. Just one month ago, on Feb. 3, FiveThirtyEight’s forecast gave them only an 8% chance to make the playoffs. Today, they’re at 24%, lingering in 10th place as a threat to make noise in the play-in.

That probability isn’t cause to plan a parade, but it’s also not nothing, especially since it was calculated without knowing Zion Williamson’s status. The 21-year-old phenom remains out indefinitely but will “gradually progress to full weight-bearing exercise and basketball activities” after a report Wednesday revealed “improved bone healing” in his right foot.

Even without their franchise player, though, this team has been good. Since Feb. 1 the Pelicans rank fifth in NET rating with the NBA’s fourth-best offense and fourth-best defense. CJ McCollum has been a blowtorch in his first eight games, averaging 26.6 points, 5.9 rebounds and 6.0 assists with the highest usage rate and true shooting percentage of his career. (Since the trade deadline, only Luka Dončić, Joel Embiid, Jayson Tatum and DeMar DeRozan have scored more points than McCollum.)

But beyond hopeful Zion-related news and an extended honeymoon period with the best NBA veteran who’s yet to make an All-Star team, there’s a notable reason to start taking the Pelicans seriously: their new starting five.

In a loss against the Cavaliers on Jan. 31, Pelicans coach Willie Green decided to start Jaxson Hayes at the four, a look he wanted to explore. “Jaxson is long. He’s athletic. He can guard multiple positions,” Green said after that game. “He’s starting to get an understanding offensively of where he needs to be when he’s at the 4. So we’ll definitely go back to it at some point.”

But after the trade deadline he replaced Hayes with McCollum—an adjustment that lasted only four games. Hayes soon found himself back in the starting lineup, this time in place of Devonte’ Graham. Ever since the Pelicans have begun each game with a delightful, exceptionally odd group on the floor: Hayes, Jonas Valančiūnas, Brandon Ingram, Herb Jones and McCollum.

For those keeping count, that’s two 6'11" centers, two 6'8" forwards and a 6'3" combo guard. Weird. Humongous. Flawed. Fun. In only 61 minutes this group has lived on a knife’s edge: Its offense has been excellent; its defense has been wretched. Size helps exacerbate what happens on each end. Offensively, the Pelicans absolutely mash the offensive glass and barely sniff the three-point line. (Their three-point rate ranks 72nd out of 72 five-man units that have appeared in at least five games and average 10 or more minutes.)

This makes sense given who’s on the floor. Valančiūnas will pop for open threes and take them when he pretty much has to, but otherwise only Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokić spend more time posting up. Hayes has no gravity on the perimeter, but in the open floor and from the dunker spot he finishes everything when fed the ball (only Dwight Powell has a higher true shooting percentage in 2022).

A point guard to organize things would be nice, but Ingram and McCollum make mud shine with their desire to pull up in the midrange, contested or not, either off a ball screen or one-on-one. Ingram’s improving as a playmaker, too, and for as much as New Orleans wants to attack in transition, the Pelicans can always empty the corner for a side pick-and-roll, knowing Ingram will make the right decision.

McCollum is crafty with a live dribble, too. Here he rejects the screen, draws help on a baseline drive and then finds a cutting Ingram for the dunk.

On defense, the Pelicans switch most ball screens that don’t involve Valančiūnas. That includes Hayes, who’s athletic enough to make the initial switch and bother just about whoever’s in front of him (except Devin Booker, who torched him last week). But issues come once he’s the defender getting screened by Valančiūnas’s man. Is Hayes fighting over the pick or ducking under? It didn’t take long for offenses to figure out how difficult this could be for Hayes to navigate.

Here he is going way under the screen on De’Aaron Fox. That’s not a bad decision, but when executed so poorly it can be. (On the broadcast, Valančiūnas could be heard yelling, “You can’t go under!” at Hayes, after he did the same guarding Harrison Barnes on a prior play.)

This group isn’t the best in basketball. But right now, in its earliest days, few are more fascinating: a matchup nightmare in myriad ways on both ends for both sides. So far the good has outweighed the bad and if they’re able to stay healthy and win the games in March they’re supposed to, maybe Williamson can return to a team that’s already built to impose its will. Or, if he doesn’t come back, the Pelicans might’ve already found something that can carry them out of the play-in, into a series against a favored opponent that won’t want any part of the offbeat look they’ve embraced—that just might save a season that’s often felt lost.