New Orleans Pelicans: 2019-20 NBA season player grades

The 2019-20 NBA season was another stepping stone for the New Orleans Pelicans, as they continue to build towards the future. Let’s grade the players.

The 2019-20 season didn’t exactly play out the way many fans had oped for the New Orleans Pelicans. Drafting Zion Williamson and having Brandon Ingram establish himself as a future star last season gave the Pelicans plenty to be content about coming into the season.

Add in the rest of the talent this team has, it seemed that making the playoffs would be the realistic goal for the year. But, an injury to Zion which saw him play in just twenty-four games on the year put a dampener on things, and the season turned into another disappointment for this franchise.

After finishing the 2018-19 season fifteen games back of the eighth seed with a 33-49 record, there were definitely strides made this past season. Those strides gave the Pelicans the opportunity to go down to Orlando’s NBA bubble, as the league made its return, and compete for a playoff spot. The bubble Pelicans were not a good watch. With their full strength squad back, it just wasn’t what was expected, and it was clear that they still need another offseason to get to that level of competitiveness that they need to in order to take that next step.

The Pelicans’ season ended with a 30-42 record, a slightly better winning percentage than the previous year but still with plenty of work to do. In a strong-as-ever Western Conference, the Pelicans can’t just have the talent to do well, they need to play hard and gel as a team – something that they didn’t show too often down the stretch, but certainly something that’s going to need to happen next year.

In this slideshow, we’re going to take a look at how the Pelicans’ players’ individual seasons panned out. We’re going to be looking at the starting five and then the five most impactful players off of the bench, in terms of minutes they actually played over the course of the season.