A whole offseason of speculation about whether the Pelicans would be any good without Rajon Rondo (seriously when did the narrative change on that dude because I missed it) looks a whole lot stupider with this decisive opening-night victory over the Rockets. Yes, I know it’s only 1 game. But my eyes tell me a story of a team that could go places. I’ve been picking them as my darkhorse WCF candidate ever since they got Anthony Davis, and this could be their year. Their depth might not be great, they must not think it is because they basically only played 7 guys, but their starters looked nice. Their starters and Elfrid Payton who will probably get a vid even though he had the worst triple-double statistically possible.
Nikola Mirotic looks like he hasn’t missed anything over the offseason, except for a day or two on the shaving. He continues to look like the perfect compliment to AD, the compliment that Cousins wasn’t and everyone realized except for the Pelicans who went out and signed mini-Cousins in Julius Randle.
It seems like so long ago that this guy was getting punched in the face by Bobby Portis. It’s only been a year, but it feels like a whole era of the NBA has come and gone since that jaw-shattering impact.