NBA Halloween: Playing trick-or-treat with each team’s early season trend

New Orleans Pelicans

The Pelicans’ playoff hopes are already shot: Trick

The last two weeks have not been kind to the NBA’s League Pass darlings. Not only are the New Orleans Pelicans one of two winless teams, but their franchise star and lightning rod rookie, Zion Williamson, won’t be back for weeks due to a torn meniscus. Thanks to an 0-4 start and an ugly -7.3 point differential, it’d be easy to write off New Orleans’ playoff hopes already.

However, the signs of life are there. An 11-point loss to the struggling Warriors definitely raised some alarm bells, but to that point, the Pels had lost a hard-fought game against an underrated Toronto Raptors squad, lost by seven to a potential playoff team in Dallas and narrowly fell to a Western Contender in the Houston Rockets by three.

Brandon Ingram has looked good, averaging a team-high 27.5 points per game, while Lonzo Ball has distributed the ball well with 7.3 assists per game. Jrue Holiday missed the team’s last two games with a knee ailment, so once he gets healthy, and once a healthy Zion returns, the Pelicans could very well live up to the hype. They may have some serious ground to make up at that point, but one week isn’t enough to overlook what this team could become at full strength.