New Orleans Pelicans: 5 moments in team history that deserve a documentary
By Eliot Clough
The New Orleans Pelicans don’t have near the history as some teams do throughout the NBA. However, there are still plenty of moments to reflect on.
ESPN’s docu-series, The Last Dance, covering Michael Jordan’s career along with the rise of the Bulls dynasty, has come to a close. The inevitable ending has left basketball fans left with little-to-nothing to entertain us amid the COVID-19 quarantine. Even as executives and the league front office continue talks of resuming the NBA season, we all crave basketball.
So, while we wait, why not dive into hypotheticals? Why not search for other entertaining ideas as we gradually become more and more stir-crazy?
To center the hypotheticals into a rational way of thinking, let’s just focus on one team. What moments in the New Orleans Pelicans franchise history deserve a single documentary, or as we just saw, an entire docuseries?
Compared to some of the most successful franchises throughout the NBA, the Pels have not yet had a clear, standalone pinnacle in their 18-year history. No championships, no MVPs and just one season with 50+ wins in team history.
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With that said, we must dive a little deeper into the intricacies of the organization and city as a whole. Of course, the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina have to be included, the tantalizing years of Chris Paul, David West, Peja Stojakovic and both the mediocre years and recent ascent.
One would think it’d be a piece of cake to throw together a list of top-five moments in team history considering the gravitas all of those moments in time carry. However, factoring in all those mediocre years, they have certainly come aplenty for the Pels. In 10 of their 18 seasons, New Orleans has ended with a losing record, and the same results have come in terms of missing the playoffs.
In the midst of all the uninspired, lackluster play, what significant occurrences have come about with the short-lived establishment in the Big Easy that would produce an entertaining bit of time on the TV screen?