After an off-season full of speculation about a potential roster shakeup, the New Orleans Pelicans are running it back with largely the same core as last year.
And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Before injuries derailed their season, the Pelicans were off to their most promising start in years – winning 23 of their first 37 games before Zion Williamson went down with a strained hamstring that sidelined him for the rest of the season.
If they had kept at that same win pace, they would have won 51 games in 2022-23, which, if everything else remained constant, would have tied them for second in the Western Conference with the Memphis Grizzlies.