Season-opening loss does little to clarify Pelicans’ identity

NEW ORLEANS – The New Orleans Pelicans’ 117-97 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers on Wednesday night wasn’t quite as bad as the final score might suggest.

But at the same time it certainly wasn’t as good as hoped by those thinking a whole bunch of changes would turn things around for a team that was 31-41 last season.

The Smoothie King Center felt a lot more like pre-COVID times than it did last season as attendance limitations were lifted and a nice and pretty enthusiastic crowd was on hand.

It was Willie Green’s first game as the third head coach in as many seasons for the Pelicans.

It was the debut of a revamped roster as the starting lineup featured two players who weren’t on the team last year and five other newcomers would play before the night was done.

In the end it was a lopsided but not altogether uncompetitive loss against the team that had the best record in the Eastern Conference last season.

Green said afterward that the team “is still a work in progress,” which is true of everyone this team of year, but especially true of one going through as big a transition as this one is.

Of course the biggest caveat in evaluating this performance is that it didn’t include the Pelicans’ best player – Zion Williamson – which has been the case for nearly half of the games since the franchise drafted Williamson two years ago.

But the Sixers mere missing a pretty significant player too in former LSU guard Ben Simmons, who was serving a one-game suspension. They also were without his primary backup, Shake Milton, who has an ankle injury.

So that caveat is in no way an excuse for a mediocre performance.

Williamson is out indefinitely as he works his way back from off-season foot surgery, so Green’s first team is going to have to go about the day-to-day, game-to-game, practice-to-practice business of building an identity without him.

The Pelicans started slowly as Jonas Valanciunus had a hard time dealing with Joel Embiid’s ability to drive to the basket and shoot from the outside. Valanciunus ultimately would have an even harder time with his shot as he made just three of 19 shots, finishing with nine points and 11 rebounds.

He’s a better player than that.

The offense never found a rhythm as new point guard Devonte’ Graham looked like he will be a more consistent shooter than Lonzo Ball (as advertised) but might not be the facilitator that Ball was.

“I’ve got to do a better job of putting guys in a better position, calling out different plays, getting guys situated,” Graham said. “That’s definitely on me.”

We can make our first head-to-head comparison of the new point guard and the old one when the Pelicans visit Ball’s new team in Chicago on Friday.

Brandon Ingram led the Pelicans in scoring (25 points), which he should do in virtually any game that Williamson misses.

But it was a more uneven performance than his stats might indicate (12 of 26, 1 of 3 on 3-pointers, six assists) because he started slowly as the Sixers led for nearly all of the first half and even though he scored the first five points of what quickly became a disastrous fourth quarter, he didn’t lead the offense for extended stretches.

If there is lemonade to be made from Williamson’s absence it could be that it gives Ingram yet another opportunity to assert himself as the offensive leader.

Often times when Ingram and Williamson are on the floor together, Ingram seems uncertain of how to balance being assertive and deferring to Williamson. With Williamson out he should feel comfortable in asserting himself as the undisputed scoring leader.

He didn’t do that Wednesday night.

If there was a positive in this performance it was that Nickeil Alexander-Walker continues to look like a young player whose growth is on a steep upward curve.

In fact at times he seemed more comfortable attacking than Ingram did when the offense needed a basket. Alexander-Walker scored an efficient 23 points, making 9 of 16 shots, including 4 of 8 3-pointers.

“It was our first official game together,” Alexander-Walker said. “We’re still kind of learning and growing. A lot of changes are going to come, and we’ve just got to grind away.”

The Pelicans now embark on a three-game (in four days) road trip beginning with that game against the Bulls on Friday.

They come back home to face another Eastern Conference heavyweight in the Atlanta Hawks next Wednesday.

The memory of those attendance restrictions are fading away.

Soon, the new faces on the roster will become familiar ones.

Soon, Green will no longer be the new coach but simply the coach.

But it will take longer to from an understanding of what this team is going to be.

One down, 81 to go.