New Orleans Pelicans: Can Kyle Lowry be their Chris Paul?

If you were to ask any NBA fan who is in with a chance of making next year’s NBA Finals, nobody would select the New Orleans Pelicans. With good reason too, as not only did they miss out on even the play-in tournament this year, they looked like an uneven roster. Zion Williamson is very clearly the future of the franchise, but Brandon Ingram is also the here and now.

A former All-Star who is going to be hard sold as the second option on a team, especially as he was given a max extension to ply his trade in The Big Easy. But what if the Pelicans were actually closer to being the finished article than you might think? What if they traded for Kyle Lowry, as has been rumored recently, to see how far his veteran leadership could take them?

It might seem a stretch, and in the loaded Western Conference, it most certainly is. Only we have a recent example, one that was on display as recently as Tuesday night, to show us why the Pelicans should think long and hard about a deal for Lowry.

The New Orleans Pelicans might look like an organization that is some way off contention right now, but could the introduction of Kyle Lowry change that?

Obviously, the comparisons between Lowry and Chris Paul are minimal outside of their age. Paul was going to the Hall of Fame even before this year’s run, whereas Lowry is an NBA champion who still might not have done quite enough to get in. He is also the best (most important?) player in Toronto Raptors history and has the kind of connection to a city that Paul hadn’t had before this season since leaving New Orleans.

But it goes beyond two undersized floor generals who are on the wrong side of 30 joining an organization that didn’t make the playoffs in the previous season before drastically changing their fortunes almost overnight. Lowry would be joining a Pelicans roster that echoes that of the Suns in some ways.

Would you rather start a franchise with Williamson or DeAndre Ayton? For all of Ayton’s heroics this year, and he practically made the traditional center position relevant again, the answer to that question is still Williamson. He is a wrecking ball inside who is already a franchise cornerstone. There are fewer question marks about the player he will one day be.

Picking between Devin Booker and Ingram is a lot harder, and if you had been asked that question 12 months ago, plenty would have gone for Ingram. Booker changed the narrative during this postseason, he’s a legitimate star, but both are guys who can score in a ridiculous amount of ways. In fact, we probably haven’t even seen yet Ingram’s game at its most potent offensively.

So the pieces are already in place for the Pelicans, like they were for the Suns last year. Obviously, there are differences. The Suns went on an 8-0 run in the NBA’s bubble in 2020 to ignite the charge that was to come. The Pelicans couldn’t even make a play-in that many felt was designed for them.

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The Suns hired one of the great minds in head coach Monty Williams, who has been amazing with that group. The Pelicans have a much more underwhelming choice calling the shots in Stan van Gundy. Adding Lowry alone can’t make up for all of these deficiencies, but a roadmap now exists that shows us it is not as crazy a call as it looked not too long ago.

Having cap spade and future picks is still very much in fashion. The Pelicans have a good stash, which they received from the Los Angeles Lakers when they traded away Anthony Davis. They also don’t look like a team that is content with continuing to rebuild. As an unrestricted free agent, the Pelicans could do a lot worse than give Lowry the bag for a year or two, and go all-in on seeing what they have with this group.

These days star players get impatient, with front offices on the clock early into their careers to try and keep them happy. The Dallas Mavericks and even the Pelicans themselves are all too aware of this already. Getting Lowry would be a signal of intent. If it doesn’t work out then he can be allowed to leave anyway.

Two years isn’t a long amount of time in the league (those two that Kawhi Leonard spent in L.A. went by quickly didn’t they?) and guards with that kind of experience can clearly make a difference. If the Pelicans decide to hold onto Lonzo Ball, it would be fascinating to see him slip into a sixth-man role on this roster. He would also learn a lot from Lowry in anticipation of taking over as the starting guard again one day.

It is not as simple as plugging a 35-year-old guard into a young and promising roster and making the finals. But there’s no need to overcomplicate things either. Injuries happen. Trades happen. So why wouldn’t the Pelicans put themselves in the best position to capitalize on all of these possibilities? The Suns did, and although it hurts now, they surely would have taken a run to the finals over the 10 seasons of missing the playoffs altogether that came before it.