It's time for a little bit of Jeopardy. The theme is 2023-24 Sacramento Kings:
This team beat the Kings six times, ended their In-Season Tournament chances, and then ended their season.
If you said, "Who is the New Orleans Pelicans," you would be dead right. The Pelicans were the Kings' Kryptonite last year. In the 84 games (regular season and play-in) the Kings played in, they were 0-6 against the Pelicans and 47-31 against the rest of the NBA.
That factoid makes seeing the 2024-25 NBA schedule pretty depressing if you are a Kings fan (as most of you readers are), as it includes a six-day stretch where the Kings face the Pelicans three times. To make matters worse, two of these three games are on the road, and this stretch (February 8-13) takes place right before the All-Star break (February 14-20).
— AL in CAL (@ALinCALI22) August 15, 2024
But I'm here to tell you that the Kings should not be fearful of the Pelicans this year. And here's why.
A Tale Of Two Offseasons
Those who have been keeping up with my work know that I am very bullish on the Kings' offseason so far. They didn't necessarily address their biggest flaws, but they still managed to enhance their strengths without amplifying their weaknesses.
But more importantly for this argument, the Pelicans had one of the wonkiest offseasons in the association. Last year, the Pelicans were great at scoring in the paint (8th in the NBA in points in the paint per 100 possessions, per NBA.com). And the Kings were lacking in traditional rim protection – the tradeoff of starting Domantas Sabonis at center.
However, this offseason, the Pelicans lost Jonas Valanciunas and Larry Nance Jr. without bringing in adequate replacements. They signed Daniel Theis and drafted Yves Messi, but the former is better suited as a backup, and the latter still needs some time to develop (age 20). So, the Pelicans have lost some of the functional size that made them such a problem for the Kings.
Not only did the Pelicans lose some paint scoring, but they also lowered their spacing potential by adding another ball-dominant player to their ranks in Dejounte Murray. This makes it easier for the Kings to pack the paint on the Pelicans' remaining paint merchants (i.e., Zion Williamson, the player on the Pelicans who caused the Kings the most problems) without paying a severe tax (since the Pelicans won't have a ton of shooting to make teams pay for collapsing the paint).
Lastly, it is highly unlikely that the Pelicans will be as lucky as they were last year and that the Kings will be as unlucky as they were. Last season, the Pelicans had the lowest opponent 3-point percentage (37%) on wide-open threes of any team in the NBA. Meanwhile, the Kings had the highest mark (42.3%) in this category.
We've talked before about how volatile 3-point shooting (especially wide-open 3-point shooting) can be. And next year, there is a good chance the Pelicans' opponent 3-point shooting regresses down to the mean, while the Kings' 3-point shooting regresses upward to that average. And if that happens, it seems very improbable that the Pelicans will repeat theri 2023-24 success against the Kings in 2024-25.
Outside of the three games in six days, the Kings don't currently have any other games against the Pelicans on their schedule.