New Orleans Pelicans Need To Fix Troubling Stat in Last Preseason Game

The New Orleans Pelicans had a plan for this season, but they have failed to execute it successfully through their first two preseason games.

Stephen Lew-Imagn Images

The New Orleans Pelicans made it very clear this offseason and at Media Day what a main offensive goal would be this year: shoot more threes.

With a rising emphasis across the Association on three-point shooting, "40" was written on the whiteboard at training camp, representative of the team wanting to take at least 40 shots from beyond the arc per game.

It has been a trend of late, with both of last year's NBA Finals teams leading the NBA in three-point attempts per game, the Boston Celtics with 42.5 and the Dallas Mavericks with 39.5.

The Pelicans ranked in 24th in attempts for the 2023-23 campaign, with only 32.6 per game.

While that may not seem like much of a difference, the Celtics finished the year second in the NBA in three-point percentage at 38.8, connecting on 16.5 of their nightly attempts, 1.7 buckets more than the next closest team, the Golden State Warriors (14.8).

New Orleans did connect on their three-point attempts at a good clip, 38.3 percent, good enough for fourth in the Association, but with their limited amount of attempts, that equates to only 12.5 connections, ranking 18th.

So if the Pelicans were to increase their attempts to 40, with their 38.3 success rate from last year, they would connect on 15.3 deep shots per game, a 1.8 increase year-over-year.

The problem the team has faced through their first two preseason games, however, is that while they are shooting more threes, they are not connecting at a rate good enough to justify the increase in attempts.

While it is a very small sample size, and the preseason no less, through two games they have made 38.5 three-point attempts.

They have connected on only 10.5 of those attempts, or 27.2 percent of the time.

This has also been without two of their preeminent three-point shooters, Brandon Ingram and Trey Murphy III, with Ingram planned to not play until tonight's preseason game, the last before the regular season, and Murphy sidelined with a hamstring injury for at least another week.

However, it has included other key contributors in CJ McCollum (5-14), Dejounte Murray (1-7), Herb Jones (2-6), Jordan Hawkins (3-8), and Zion Williamson (0-2).

Again, this is only the preseason, and only two games at that, and it could be the victim of a small sample size or shooters being rusty from the offseason and trying to get back into the groove.

But tonight's game, especially with Ingram on the court, will be very telling of how New Orleans will approach the matter in the regular season, good or bad.