Within a one-month span in the summer of 2019, Anthony Davis, Paul George and Russell Westbrook got traded.
The New Orleans Pelicans and the Oklahoma City Thunder both sent out All-Star players who were ready for change in their careers.
The return the Pelicans and Thunder got back looked strong on paper. The Pelicans received three players (Brandon Ingram, Josh Hart and Lonzo Ball) and three first-round picks from the Los Angeles Lakers for Davis. The Thunder received from the Los Angeles Clippers one intriguing young player (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander), one veteran (Danilo Gallinari) and a whopping five first-round picks for George. Then, when the Thunder moved Westbrook to the Houston Rockets, its compensation was Chris Paul and two more first-round picks.
The Pelicans and Thunder were in similar positions five years ago. Both teams needed reboots after runs with All-NBA talent petered out. Even though the Pelicans won the draft lottery in 2019 — putting them in position to draft Zion Williamson — the Thunder has zoomed ahead of them.
How did it happen? The Thunder has better top-end roster talent than the Pelicans; the Thunder developed and promoted one of the NBA’s best coaches; and, as Pelicans executive David Griffin argued, Oklahoma City has paradoxically become so good because it spent two years trying not to win.
“The thing I think OKC did incredibly well from a fit perspective is those kids and young men got to develop in an environment where winning didn’t matter for a couple years,” Griffin said. “Our team was consistently trying to win. The development curve looked different. The trend line looked different.”
Different expectations
Williamson had one of the best college seasons of anyone ever in 2018-19 at Duke. From the moment he stepped foot into the NBA, he was one of the league’s most efficient high-volume scorers. He averaged 22.5 points per game on 58.3% shooting as a rookie and followed that up by averaging 27.0 points on 61.1% shooting in his second season.
Williamson was so good as a teenager, the Pelicans tried to be competitive immediately. The Pelicans signed JJ Redick and Derrick Favors to free agent deals before Williamson's rookie season, then hired a then-61-year-old Stan Van Gundy as their coach before Williamson's second season.
The Thunder slow-played things.
Gilgeous-Alexander was the 11th pick in the 2018 draft. He had a nice rookie season with the Clippers, averaging 10.8 ppg, but it was not good enough for him to finish top five in Rookie of the Year voting. The Canadian guard got incrementally better in his first three years with Oklahoma City, and in the last two seasons, he has exploded. Gilgeous-Alexander will finish top three in MVP voting this season. He averaged 30.1 ppg, 5.5 rebounds and 6.2 assists while leading the NBA in steals.
Gilgeous-Alexander had to endure 22- and 24-win seasons before the Thunder started winning. Those two miserable years put the Thunder in a position to place elite talent next to Gilgeous-Alexander.
Chet Holmgren — a rim-protecting, 3-point shooting center — was the No. 2 pick in 2022. Holmgren and Jalen Williams — the No. 12 pick in the 2022 draft — both outplayed Ingram in the Thunder’s first-round sweep of the Pelicans.
It was unfortunate Williamson could not participate in the series because of a right hamstring injury. It is impossible to know how much his presence could have tilted the outcome.
While Williamson had a strong regular season, the evidence from October through March was clear in showing that Gilgeous-Alexander is ahead of him as a player. The playoffs also made it obvious the Thunder’s second- and third-best players are superior to the to what the Pelicans can boast.
Coaching
Needing to replace Billy Donovan in 2020, the Thunder looked internally and promoted assistant coach Mark Daigneault to the lead job. Daigneault, only 35 years old at the time, had spent five years coaching Oklahoma City’s G League team before he got his break.
In the last three seasons, the Thunder has gone from 24 to 40 to 57 regular-season wins. Oklahoma City finished first in the Western Conference even though the average age of its roster was 23.9 years old. Last month, Daigneault was voted Coach of the Year by his peers and the media.
The Pelicans’ path to identifying the right coach has been bumpier. The organization hired Griffin to be then-coach Alvin Gentry’s boss in 2019, which went poorly. Griffin and Gentry began bumping heads within months of working with each other. The Pelicans replaced Gentry with Van Gundy in 2020. The old-school Van Gundy’s approach was not well received by the Pelicans’ young roster. Van Gundy lasted eight months.
In July 2021, Willie Green took over. The Pelicans have improved their win total every year he has been in charge. Their 49 regular-season wins were tied for the second-most in franchise history.
Green has gotten the Pelicans to defend at a high level. They have finished sixth in points allowed per 100 possessions in each of the last two seasons.
Their offense has, at times, been underwhelming. The Pelicans finished 20th in offensive efficiency two years ago. They jumped to 11th this season, but without Williamson in the playoffs, they looked hopeless. The 93.5 points per 100 possessions they scored in their series against the Thunder was the worst offensive rating from a playoff team in eight years.
The Pelicans at least enjoyed regular-season success. In 2024-25, they are hoping to experience some of the playoff success the Thunder is having now.
