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The New Orleans Pelicans are mired in a frustrating season, and the team is open to trade offers to rebuild. New Orleans is rumored to have every player available for a possible deal except three, per The Stein Line Substack account.
Those three players expected to stay in the Big Easy are Herb Jones, Yves Missi and Trey Murphy III. Everyone else including Zion Williamson could be shipped elsewhere during this season.
Missi is a rookie, while Jones and Murphy are also younger players. Pelicans leadership believes those three guys are part of a nucleus of talent for the future. Missi leads the Pelicans in rebounds and blocks, with eight and 1.2 respectively.
Murphy is the fourth leading scorer on the team. He's averaging more than 18 points a game, although he's missed several contests. Jones is averaging a little more than 10 points a contest.
The Pelicans are 5-21 on the year, with injury issues aplenty.
Pelicans fans have to be frustrated with this club
The Pelicans have never had much success since they became a franchise, but this season has been especially frustrating. New Orleans has just five wins in 26 games. That's good enough for last in the Western Conference, just behind the struggling Utah Jazz.
New Orleans has been bothered by injuries to multiple players. The team is without Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram, among several other rotation pieces. The squad has lost nine of their last 10 contests, in part due to the lack of depth they are dealing with. Ingram for example is the team's leading scorer, and fans have gotten quite used to reading his name on the injury report.
Pelicans fans are disheartened with how rough it has been. New Orleans entered the season with expectations to make the postseason. Those hopes are pretty much extinguished, despite the season still having miles to go.
“We know we gotta give more offensively, but we definitely gotta give more on the defensive end,” Ingram said earlier this year, per Sports Illustrated. “We gotta have that in us, every single time that we come out and do our jobs.”
The team is truly struggling defensively. New Orleans is doing a poor job this season in stopping second chance points. The Pelicans are allowing opponents to score more than 15 second chance points a game, per league stats. Only the Washington Wizards and Oklahoma City Thunder are allowing more.
The Pelicans next play the Indiana Pacers on Sunday, with a chance to get a victory.
