The 2025-26 NBA season is right here! Over the subsequent few weeks, we’re analyzing the largest questions, best- and worst-case situations, and win projections for all 30 franchises — from the still-rebuilding groups to the true title contenders.
2024-25 end
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Record: 21-61 (14th within the West, missed playoffs)
Offseason strikes
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Additions: Jordan Poole, Kevon Looney, Saddiq Bey, Derik Queen, Jeremiah Fears, Micah Peavy, Bryce McGowens, Jaden Springer, Jalen McDaniels, Garrison Brooks, Trey Alexander, Hunter Dickinson
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Subtractions: C.J. McCollum, Kelly Olynyk, Bruce Brown, Mojave King, Lester Quiñones, Antonio Reeves, Keion Brooks Jr., Jeremiah Robinson-Earl, Elfrid Payton, Kylor Kelly, Jamal Cain, Brandon Boston Jr.
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(If that looks as if a whole lot of shifting items, that’s as a result of it’s: New Orleans ranks final within the NBA in roster continuity, in line with John Schuhmann’s analysis, bidding farewell to 50% of final season’s minutes.)
Zion Williamson, 25, has performed a complete of 214 video games getting into his seventh season in New Orleans. (Taylor Wilhelm/Yahoo Sports Illustration)
The Big Question: Can Zion Williamson make all of it make sense?
No staff caught extra shrapnel over the offseason than the Pelicans. (Well, no staff with out an alleged salary cap circumvention investigation brewing, anyway.)
Pundits and observers everywhere in the league (including here) raked New Orleans’ new braintrust — government vice chairman of basketball operations Joe Dumars and senior vice chairman of basketball operations Troy Weaver — over the coals for his or her draft-night decision-making. To evaluate:
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New Orleans traded the Pacers’ top-four-protected 2026 first-round decide — probably invaluable, with Tyrese Haliburton rehabilitating his Achilles — again to Indiana in alternate for the 2025 draft’s No. 23 choice;
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The Pels then packaged that No. 23 decide with both their very own unprotected 2026 first-rounder or the Bucks’ unprotected 2026 first-rounder — whichever one is healthier — in a cope with Atlanta to maneuver as much as No. 13 and draft Maryland product Derik Queen to pair with Jeremiah Fears.
Turning three potential photographs at a top-10 decide in subsequent 12 months’s draft into Queen — a super-talented offensive big man, but additionally a prospect whose defensive potential, athleticism and conditioning have come below query — drew widespread criticism, each for a reported negotiation behind the commerce that almost beggars belief, and for what many thought-about a defective overarching thought course of.
You simply gained 21 video games, with one of many worst defenses within the NBA, and your hoped-for lead guard, Dejounte Murray, is probably going out until at least January as he works his approach again from a ruptured Achilles … and you’re buying and selling unprotected picks?
Avoiding probably the most catastrophic consequence right here — handing the Hawks a prime decide in a category headlined by mega-prospects like Darryn Peterson, A.J. Dybantsa, Cameron Boozer and Nate Ament — doesn’t simply require Queen to appear to be a budding star after offseason wrist surgery, or the shuffled-up Bucks to make the playoffs. It additionally requires the Pelicans themselves — homeowners of final season’s fourth-worst file and second-worst web ranking — to vault into the playoff image within the brutally aggressive West.
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That would require higher well being for a staff that misplaced the fifth-most video games within the league to harm final season, in line with Spotrac, with Murray, the since-traded Brandon Ingram, All-Defensive wing Herb Jones, ascending two-way swingman Trey Murphy III and Jose Alvarado among the many many, many Pelicans who missed important time. The most vital of them, after all: Zion Williamson. And greater than something, New Orleans’ possibilities of being ok to not hand Atlanta a golden ticket relaxation on — stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before — a full, wholesome, superstar-level-impact season from one of the vital tantalizing, frustrating and inescapably alluring gamers on the earth.
We’ve seen Williamson appear to be a destroyer of worlds for stretches — like the start of the 2022-23 season, when he had the Pelicans looking like a title contender … proper up till he suffered a season-ending hamstring injury.
We’ve seen him play a principally full season, logging 70 video games and greater than 2,200 minutes in 2023-24 … however along with his scoring, rebounding, field-goal proportion and total influence dipping within the course of. Those Pels gained 49 video games and made the play-in event, with Zion wanting like the very best participant on the ground in opposition to the Lakers … proper up till he hurt his hamstring.
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What we haven’t seen since 2020-21, although — when he performed 61 of 72 video games, averaged 27 factors per sport on 61.1% taking pictures, and earned his first All-Star berth — is Zion doing each. The Pelicans want him to be that form of ever-present and overwhelming; they want him to take the stretch he had final season when he looked like he’d leveled up as a playmaker and all-around force (proper up till, natch, he was shut down with a back injury) and preserve it for 70 video games.
Give me a wholesome Williamson, Jones and Murphy — playmaking, measurement, taking pictures and athleticism throughout the two by means of 4 spots, with Jones reclaiming his spot as arguably the very best perimeter defender within the league — and you’ll be able to discuss me into the shot-creation swings on Jordan Poole, who bounced again from an “oops, all memes!” 2023-24 in Washington to common 20.5 factors and 4.5 assists per sport on .591 true taking pictures final season, and Fears, a hiccup-quick penetrator whom our Kevin O’Connor actually compared to Poole popping out of Oklahoma. Piece collectively that form of offensive firepower on the perimeter, and possibly the query marks at middle — second-year execs Yves Missi and Karlo Matković, rookie Queen, veteran giving tree Looney — and on protection extra broadly change into much less worrisome. (Willie Green, who conjured up consecutive top-10 finishes in defensive effectivity in 2022-23 and ’23-24, has his work reduce out for him.)
[Get more Pelicans news: New Orleans team feed]
The solely approach all of it works, although, is that if Williamson stays on the courtroom. The Pelicans have projected confidence in him doing so, with Dumars guaranteeing his contract and calling on the previous No. 1 total decide to be “responsible and accountable” to his teammates and the franchise. Williamson has responded by getting in what appears to be the best shape of his professional career, telling reporters on media day that he hasn’t felt this good since his reality-rending lone 12 months at Duke and that he’s prepared to present “whatever my team needs.”
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More than something, it wants him — all of him, on a regular basis. Anything much less, and drastic adjustments could possibly be coming in New Orleans.
Best-case situation
Lucy lastly lets Charlie Brown kick the soccer. Zion places all of it collectively, taking part in 70-plus video games, making All-NBA First Team, ending on or simply outdoors the MVP poll, and returning to the All-Star staff … the place he’s joined by Murphy, who builds on the leap he took final season earlier than tearing his labrum. After taking part in a grand whole of zero minutes together last season, Williamson, Jones and Murphy type one of many league’s most steadily used and potent trios, offering an elevated baseline and help construction that permits children Fears, Queen and Missi to get in the place they slot in. Poole continues final season’s resurgence, Murray comes again wanting just like the star they traded for him to be, and the Pelicans experience a top-10 offense to a top-10 seed within the West — postseason participation that makes the decide debt to Atlanta much less onerous.
If every thing falls aside
Williamson can’t keep wholesome, the home of playing cards crumbles, the Pelicans took on $65.9 million price of Poole for no tangible profit, and they watch the Hawks take a top-five decide off their palms.
2025-26 schedule
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Season opener: Oct. 22 at Memphis
If Zion performs 60 video games, I believe the Pelicans will win no less than half of them, which would go away us with the over. All that’s left, then, is to place our cash down on Zion staying wholesome.
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No, by all means: You go first.
More season previews
East: Atlanta Hawks • Boston Celtics • Brooklyn Nets • Charlotte Hornets • Chicago Bulls • Cleveland Cavaliers • Detroit Pistons • Indiana Pacers • Miami Heat • Milwaukee Bucks • New York Knicks • Orlando Magic • Philadelphia 76ers • Toronto Raptors • Washington Wizards
West: Dallas Mavericks • Denver Nuggets • Golden State Warriors • Houston Rockets • Los Angeles Clippers • Los Angeles Lakers • Memphis Grizzlies • Minnesota Timberwolves • New Orleans Pelicans • Oklahoma City Thunder • Phoenix Suns • Portland Trail Blazers • Sacramento Kings • San Antonio Spurs • Utah Jazz