For the Pelicans own pick, 5-14 goes to Portland so it would have to be top 4. The Pelicans have a chance to land two top-4 picks.
The Pels are young and talented. They have the front and back court covered very well. They can hurt you on the wings and their, inside game is tough.
yeah, espn hadn't updated yet when I though they had doesn't matter, I think people are way too quick to dismiss the Spurs' chances of beating the Pels
I think we should try to win that Pelicans game. We're pretty much locked into 6th. But NO can still go between 10-12 depending on how the Spurs and Wiz do.
I would also be worried if it comes down to one game but the idea that the Pelicans are the favorite against the loser of Wolves/Clippers is not a logical one.
Right. They'd still have to play the loser of the other play-in series? So, they would have to do more than just beat the Spurs.
Yes. The Pelicans would have to play at Minnesota or Los Angeles. The home team would be coming off a loss and obviously very motivated for their season not to end badly in front of their home crowd.
They've been 1 game over .500 after getting him. They started off the season pure shit, 1-12. After an awful start, they've been roughly the exact same before and after adding CJ.
If the Pelicans make it to the second round and there isn't some kind of miraculous resurrection of Zion's season (by that I mean Zion playing at or close to his best for significant minutes) then they will face a team on that team's home court that is a better team than they are. That's all there is to it. Both teams will be in a win or go home scenario, so being "obviously very motivated" won't be an advantage that the loser of the 7/8 game will have against the winner of the 9/10 game. Their advantages again are simply that they'll be the better team and have home court advantage. So the odds of the pick conveying will still be in our favor if the Pelicans beat the Spurs but obviously none of us should take for granted that the Wolves or Clips will beat the Pels for sure. It will be a really stressful situation for any of us as Blazers fans. Let's just hope the Spurs can beat the Pelicans in the 9/10 game. Let's hope Dejounte is better by this upcoming game against Minny so he can get back into peak condition by the time they have to face the Pelicans, after missing three games and self-reportedly loosing 7-8 lbs.
How has the season been saved? They'll make play in. Is that saving a season? What if the Pelicans has tanked instead of trying to win. They'd have for sure another lottery pick. What really saved the season for the Pelicans was the undoing of the Lakers. (And maybe Joe Cronin for allowing top 4 protection of their pick.)
Among the last 4 road games for the Spurs, they have beaten Golden State, New Orleans and Denver. The Denver victory was a 19-point beat down with the Spurs in control starting at the end of the first quarter. Edit: the Spurs are 7-1 in their last 8 games. The sole loss was by 1 point to Memphis at home. They were 5-0 in their road games in that span.
That is cause for hope, for sure. I think the Spurs have to have at least a 40% chance of winning that game and may even be favored if Zion isn't playing, the Spurs win at least one of their last three games... they're tough games and the Pelicans only beat us in their last three. I think the fact that they've won their last three games without Dejounte is really impressive. I think they match up well with the Pelicans. I'm not counting the Spurs out at all.
You can totally argue the tactics of the trade but it is fair to say that the trade did turn their season around and made them far far more competitive. Also, CJ's value has been very apparent and they did totally fleece us. I don't want to speak for him but I do think the point @THE HCP was making is that if you don't think that getting CJ turned their season around and if you don't think that they fleeced us, then you haven't been watching. Whether turning their season around was the right move in the long run, I guess could be debatable. I will say that going into next season with CJ, Ingram, Herb, Zion, JV, Larry, Hayes, Graham, Murphy and the Lakers pick... doesn't look like a bad direction to be headed in. Plus the fact that in that trade they preserved their pick next season that has the unprotected swap option with the Lakers, they preserved the Lakers 2024 first rounder and if the pick conveys to us they preserved the Bucks 2025 first rounder. You can try to argue that keeping Hart and their pick this year would have been better than getting CJ but I don't think you'd be on the winning side of that argument with most people. They needed a lead guard with everything that they already have and unless you could guarantee that they would get Ivey and Ivey will be better than CJ soon, I think they did a great job with that trade, a much better job than us.
