~~~ Official 2023 New Orleans Pelican Off-season Discussion Thread ~~~ (7 Viewers)

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Lifelong Celtics fan here, although I do want the Pels to win (just not against us) because of all my peeps back home. Observations:

LOVE the Pels defense, that's the furthest any team has pushed us from the basket by far.

Ingram is the real deal and only getting better, mostly by NOT playing hero ball and taking all his shots in the offense. To me, he looks like Tatum 2-3 years ago.

They will be better with Zion, no question. Both he and the other guys will need some time together, this is no longer an isolation league (cf. Harden, James and Westbrook, Russell) and ball movement is critical (which is why the Celtics are so good -- if Tatum is not driving or shooting, the ball is back out of his hands very quickly and he gets a lot of hocket assists). Zion will need to do the same, and I am sure he will.

I follow the whole league pretty closely (since the mid-70s), and I don't see any team in the West that's clearly better right now.

As far as the Celtics, last night was not a fluke, and they were missing two of their top eight rotation guys (DPOY Marcus Smart, and C Rob Williams, who just changes everything for the better on defense, not to mention this is a very short team without him, can't wait until he's off IR).

It all starts with Tatum, who always plays well even when he is not shooting well. He feels no need to get more shots until he gets hot -- it is very rare that you'll see a 10-for-27 night out of him -- which provides fair opportunities for everyone else. Last night it was White and Horford. Next game it might be Brogdon and Grant Williams. Whole team can shoot 3's and are top 1-2 in FT% as a team.

Celtics have a ton of great/really good individual defenders (honestly, pretty much everybody except, oddly, Jaylen Brown). They've given up too many points early in the season but that will improve.

Bottom line on the Pels, though, every West team has flaws, and there's no reason that I can see that they don't have a good chance to win the West if they're healthy in April and keep playing together.
 
ChrisinNOLA said:
Not to do with our game but anyone saw the Giannis temper tantrum last night?
Click to expand...

I’ve read multiple reports and I’m a bit confused.

From what I read, Giannis was not happy with his FT performance, so he went to shoot some post-game FTs and has a ritual of not stopping until he hits 10 in-a-row. Apparently, after he had made 8, one of the Philly players came out and took the ball from him. Words were exchanged and Giannis eventually found 2 other basketballs, but when he got back to the court, workers had placed a 12’ ladder in front of the hoop. He asked them to move it and they refused so he slid it out of the way. They immediately placed it back in his shooting path and he got upset and tipped it.

Not saying either party is right. Giannis just wanted to get in some FTs and the staff wanted to do their end of night work so they could go home.

Read somewhere (else) the crew needed to convert the court , but the Flyers don’t play until Monday.

Odd (other than occurring in Philly)
 
Grumpy Old Manatee said:
I’ve read multiple reports and I’m a bit confused.

From what I read, Giannis was not happy with his FT performance, so he went to shoot some post-game FTs and has a ritual of not stopping until he hits 10 in-a-row. Apparently, after he had made 8, one of the Philly players came out and took the ball from him. Words were exchanged and Giannis eventually found 2 other basketballs, but when he got back to the court, workers had placed a 12’ ladder in front of the hoop. He asked them to move it and they refused so he slid it out of the way. They immediately placed it back in his shooting path and he got upset and tipped it.

Not saying either party is right. Giannis just wanted to get in some FTs and the staff wanted to do their end of night work so they could go home.

Read somewhere (else) the crew needed to convert the court , but the Flyers don’t play until Monday.

Odd (other than occurring in Philly)
Click to expand...
Extremely odd... Philly already got a reputation of being a rude bunch.

How long was Giannis holding them up? Was there something else they could go do in the meantime?
 
As much as I hate to quote/cite ESPN, here is the link

www.espn.com

Giannis explains side of 'unfortunate' ladder scene

Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo argued with an arena worker and sent a ladder toppling over as he tried to shoot practice free throws after Friday's loss at Philadelphia, during which he shot 4-for-15 from the line.
www.espn.com

No mention of the time delay.
 
Zion publicly say he will be playing Sunday.
 
Man... Medical Staff from Saints and Pelicans are night and day.


Pelicans are a bit extreme with not letting our guys not play unless 100% while Saints are using webMD to figure out player recovery lol
 

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