Are the New Orleans Pelicans close to finally taking flight or in a full-blown nosedive?

Advertisement Fletcher Mackel: Pelicans fun like Jazz Fest; actually winning games not so important Share Shares Copy Link Copy

Tom Benson saved basketball in New Orleans.Four years ago, the New Orleans Saints owner and Louisiana's richest man purchased the then-New Orleans Hornets.Had Benson not bought into the NBA, the franchise probably would have been relocated.I remember Benson saying that day he wanted to change the team's name to something more local and to bring a basketball championship to the Crescent City.The name change has taken place, but the championship is nowhere close to happening.In fact, if the Pelicans continue down the path they're currently on, fans may as well look at the team in the same way we look at Jazz Fest or French Quarter Festival.We're proud of those events, but they're something we do just for fun.Right now, the Pelicans are just for fun because they can't seriously convince anyone winning is important.Yes, the team was decimated by injuries this season and that hurt them,but to blame the 30-52 overall record solely on injuries would be disingenuous.Take, for example, the Memphis Grizzlies. They lost star player Marc Gasol for the season and have used a league-high 28 players, yet they're headed to the playoffs.So injuries aside, let's dig deeper.The Pelicans' roster and head coach Alvin Gentry's style never meshed.In games when five key players -- Jrue Holiday, Eric Gordon, Anthony Davis, Ryan Anderson and Omer Asik -- played together, the team was just 12-21.Also, for some unknown reason Gentry refused to play his two best players together most of the year.Anthony Davis was statistically his best when he shared the floor with Holiday, but he only did that 52 percent of the time.By comparison, out on the West Coast, Steph Curry and Draymond Green, the Golden State Warriors' two best players, shared the floor 91 percent of the time.General Manager Dell Demps built the Pelicans with the expectation they'd take flight in Davis' fourth year.But they're in a nosedive!Gordon and Anderson are free agents and expected to leave New Orleans this summer.Asik was a disaster in Gentry's pace-and-space system and he'll be 30 years old, ancient by NBA big man standards, this summer.Also Tyreke Evans and Quincy Pondexter have had five combined knee surgeries over the past 11 months.And because Demps traded away three first-round raft picks building this team, the Pels have no young up-and-coming players to grow with Davis.So what does the team do?Well, that's up to Benson.But I'll say this, Mr. Benson, as many of us know, is a man of faith, a lifelong practicing Catholic.That said, if he just "runs it back," so to speak, with the same leadership and the same core players, he'll assume all fans have faith, blind faith, because that's what all fans need to have to believe in and follow the New Orleans Pelicans.