NBA rumors: Pelicans expected to be aggressive this offseason, per report

The New Orleans Pelicans could easily justify a slow offseason if they wanted to. They ranked sixth in the NBA in net rating and had the NBA’s best road record. Were it not for a poorly timed Zion Williamson injury in the Play-In round and a historically deep Western Conference, they easily could have gone on the sort of unexpected, deep playoff run that has taken the Dallas Mavericks to the NBA Finals. Plenty of teams would look at that outcome and the set of circumstances that led up to it, shrug, and decide just to run it back and hope for better luck next year.

But according to Christian Clark of NOLA.com, the Pelicans are expected to aggressively pursue upgrades this offseason. This echoes the sentiment that top basketball executive David Griffin gave at his end of season media availability. “I think in the past we’ve always erred on the side of continuity,” Griffin said, “and our takeaway has always been ‘Let’s see this group healthy.’ (Now) I think we’ve seen this group enough. We had a really good opportunity to see Zion play a career high in games (with 70). We saw it for segments of time well enough to understand that we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Before the Pelicans start thinking about external additions, they have four major internal decisions to make.

Starting center Jonas Valanciunas is set to be a free agent. Are the Pelicans planning to bring him back, or replace him through a trade? With stellar backup Larry Nance Jr. in place, New Orleans doesn’t necessarily need to add a pricey starter, but Nance has had too many injuries to be relied upon for starter minutes. It needs someone at center.The Pelicans have a team option on Jose Alvarado worth practically nothing. If they decline it, he becomes a restricted free agent and they have to pay him more right away. Accept it and he’s cheap this offseason, but an unrestricted free agent next offseason. Last summer, the Pelicans took advantage of this CBA quirk by allowing Herb Jones to become a restricted free agent and then underpaying him by using the threat of matching any…


Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/nba-rumors-pelicans-expected-to-be-aggressive-this-offseason-per-report/

Author : Sam Quinn

Publish date : 2024-06-03 00:09:48

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.