Part 7 of the offseason guides leads us back to the Western Conference, with two teams signaling their intention to make a run at the postseason next year: the New Orleans Pelicans and Golden State Warriors.
New Orleans Pelicans
The Pelicans' season seemed to get derailed the second it started for their first game of the season. They started the season without Trey Murphy due to an ankle injury, but this slowly started to take shape on the whole team. Herb Jones missed a majority of the season due to a torn labrum, Zion Williamson dealt with multiple hamstring injuries, and to cap everything off, Dejounte Murray, who they traded for last offseason, tore his Achilles later on in the season. All of these injuries had them get off to a league-worst 5-32 start, and never saw the team placed by the front office come together. If it already wasn’t bad enough, Dyson Daniels, who the Pelicans traded in part of the Dejounte Murray trade, was named to the All-Defensive team and shows to be a more than serviceable player in the NBA. To top it all off, the Pelicans decided to trade Brandon Ingram at the trade deadline to the Raptors. The Brandon Ingram trade only resulted in a 1st round pick in 2026 from Indiana that they traded back to the Pacers during the finals. All of this leads to one simple question. What the hell are the Pelicans?
Financially, the Pelicans have never paid the tax and look as though they won’t in the near future, but the roster is at an interesting place at this time. The first move we need to talk about is the draft night trade they made to acquire Derik Queen. The Pelicans at the beginning of the night held picks #7 and #23 overall in the draft, but loved Derik Queen, who offers some intriguing stuff as a point-forward, and a skilled big in the NBA. While making a trade to acquire Queen, the Pelicans jumped up the board from #23 to #13 in a trade with the Hawks. The Pelicans gave away some of the draft capital in the 2025 draft because of this, but this didn’t compare to the 2026 UNPROTECTED FIRST ROUND pick (most favorable between MIL and NOP) they gave the Hawks in this trade. This isn’t an indictment on Queen, but the Pelicans went 21-61 last year, in the WESTERN Conference, not the Eastern Conference. The draft ended with them adding Queen, next to Jerimiah Fears, an explosive point guard for Oklahoma, and it seems like the Pelicans, for the most part, are going for it. They have a majority of their important players locked up under contract in Herb Jones, Trey Murphy, Zion Williamson, yes, he still exists, and now Jordan Poole through the next 2 years and 3 years if you exclude Poole. While the Dejounte Murray injury leaves them without a point guard for most of next season, he’s still under contract through 2027 with a player option in 2027-2028. This led the Pelicans to trade for Jordan Poole from the Wizards; they let veteran CJ McCollum go to Washington in the trade. The lineup offers some intriguing stuff on the offensive end, but both Jones and Murphy will need to recover from the lapses of Poole, Williamson, Queen, and Fears. All of this, and I haven’t mentioned the player who played the most games last year for the Pelicans in rookie Yves Missi, now a second-year player. Missi had a productive rookie season and showed his capabilities of being a starting center on a playoff team in my eyes. Overall, the Pelicans have a lot of interesting players who don’t seem to fit together at the current moment. Draft pick-wise, they have a nice collection of picks in the first round, while the draft night trade was reckless, they still own their first-round picks from 2028-2031, and are still reaping the benefits of the Jrue Holiday trade years ago with the Bucks. They owe the Hawks one first-round pick from the Dejounte Murray trade as well, but it’s a swap that also includes the Bucks.
Player development-wise wise Yves Missi is at the top of the list. He needs some tools for his offensive game on the offensive end. His back-to-the-basket game will never fully be great given the weight difference, but that’s why you have Zion. He’s got good defensive tendencies and could offer some fun on that end of the floor for the Pelicans next season. Add in a little vision and some basic reads in the short role, and you’ve got a fully operating NBA big. Jordan Hawkins is another guy I think him taking a leap that can help a lot on the Pelicans. Admittedly, I am high on him, so it’s more of a hope I’m not wrong, but 6’5 with scoring prowess plus shooting is always nice to have. He still looks a little lost at times on the defensive end, but I’m willing to overlook that if everything else pops. I also think the next step is for Williamson and Murphy. I fully expect these two to handle the ball a lot more, even with the Jordan Poole acquisition. Williamson flashed a next-level play-making that was intriguing and showed the capability of seeing passes earlier than he had in his career. Murphy will likely need to experience the same, but I am more concerned with the shot creation. Murphy is their best jump shooter and, at 6’8, has shown flashes of being a high-level scoring option for a team. He had the highest unassisted field goal percentage of his career at 24.8% this past season and still had a true shooting percentage of 59.8%, more than impressive. Overall, he shot 30.2% on pull-ups, a number I fully expect to go up for next season. Fun times can happen in New Orleans, but fans are hoping it is next season, as there are looming repercussions if they don’t.
Golden State Warriors
The Warriors had quite the season this past year, and a roller coaster in terms of expectations. The beginning of the year started with simple postseason goals after getting blown out by the Kings in the previous season, but as the first month and a half started, the Warriors found themselves at the top of the Western Conference. They identified it as a revolving door of players, as Steve Kerr played between 10-12 guys on a nightly basis. Part of it was preserved by the elder statesmen in Steph Curry, Draymond Green, and Kevon Looney, but then a weird 4th quarter at home against the Nets saw the Warriors drop significantly in the Western Conference and almost tease fans of the frenetic start in the season. I was fully on board due to the sustained defensive effort, capped by a 39-point first-half in the defending champs', Boston Celtics, home in early December, and capped that same road trip off by beating the Oklahoma City Thunder with a healthy lineup, featuring Chet Holmgren. Then it seemingly came crashing down. They blew the 4th quarter lead to the Nets and went spiraling down the Western Conference standings before acquiring Jimmy Butler at the deadline, and almost likely two broken sides healing each other. Butler gave the Warriors another scoring option alongside all-time great Steph Curry, and Golden State gave Butler his joy back, which had gone missing in Miami. Maybe if Curry didn’t strain his hamstring in game 1 of the postseason versus the Timberwolves, the Warriors could’ve respected losing in the second round after an absolute dog fight against the Rockets that went to 7 games. However, we’ll never find out what it could’ve been, so what’s next for Golden State?
Financially, the Warriors have Curry, Butler, and Green under contract through 2026-2027, assuming Green picks up his player option or signs an extension with the franchise, and they have an active salary bill of $170 million, well below the salary tax of $187 million, a fine they did not pay last year for the first time in a while. However, they haven’t signed anyone in this offseason, literally no one. They are the only team that has yet to make a move to improve their roster. The only change is that Kevon Looney signed a 2-year $16 million deal with the Pelicans. It feels like the Warriors were waiting on Al Horford to sign with them or at least expected him to by now. The center position desperately needs an improvement, and while Quentin Post had a solid rookie season, admittedly, I wasn’t a fan of the pick. However, he proved to be a solid player for the Warriors outside of some weird lineups he faced in the postseason from the Rockets. The main offseason point for the Warriors is the Jonathan Kuminga situation. Only 5 players have signed an offer sheet in the 10 years of restricted free agent history. Side bar ( Kuminga is a restricted free agent because the Warriors did not offer him a rookie extension last year; the Warriors offered him a contract this season, but other teams can offer Kuminga a contract. If another team offers Kuminga a contract, the Warriors can choose to match the contract details or just let him sign the other team's offer.) Once this situation gets sorted out, it’ll likely be the same team from this past season running it back. However, adding shooting at the center position, i.e. Al Horford would be good for Golden State and not have to heavily rely on the Green at center lineups for a majority of games. Draft capital-wise, they own their first-round picks 2028-2031 with minor protections in 2030 to the Wizards, and have to settle their Miami Heat protections either this season or next season, but they have ammo in the chamber if they want to swing at Curry’s final years for a potential championship.
For player development, much of this article should’ve hinged on Jonathan Kuminga, who offensively, is the exact opposite of the warriors of play style, but something they needed. His number are solid and he is a freak athlete, with not quite the feel they wanted, but Kuminga outs pressure on the rim and in a similar way Jimmy Butler fits for the Warriors, he gets to the foul line, an area the Warriors are not amongst the top of the league ranks. Kuminga, is an interesting player, falling out of the rotation come playoff time, was interesting, but there’s no reason Gui Santos should be getting minutes over him, especially in the postseason. The lack of awareness on both ends of the floor at times is alarming, but Kuminga is rare breed of athleticism at his size. He can definitely improve to be a good NBA player, it’s just if it’s on the Warriors or elsewhere. The next player would be Brandin Podziemski. Podziemski had a very productive second-year after coming off an All-rookie team in his rookie season. The trade talks involving the Warriors and Jazz might have tainted his outlook given he was off limits and didn’t start the season well, but eventually bounced back and averaged 11 points a game on 44% shooting from the field and 37% from 3. The playmaking has also been solid, but I think the improve needs to be directing the offense a little better than at the beginning of the season. Warriors were sub 110 offensive rating with him on the floor and Curry off the floor, now every offense for the Warriors suffered without Curry on the floor, but having Podziemski be just a tab bit better especially in pick and roll could see the offense improve incrementally, which is needed. The final comment I will make is how well Moses Moody improved as a defender over the past season, he had a phenomenal season as the point of attack defender and putting him next to Green and Butler certainly helped Golden State. The final step is getting him consistent with the shot from the 3-point line as he shot 33.3% in the playoffs after shooting 37% from 3 in the regular season. Warriors fan it’s ok to not win a championship, that may hurt, but this is the cost of having an older dynasty. The young guys are expected to fill in the roles needed and that likely does not happen. Meanwhile the older guys eventually aren’t good enough and the talent isn’t the same in order to win a championship. Overall, you have Steph Curry and the main priority should be keeping him as a Warriors for life and give him a fighting chance, because he is a generational star and an all-time talent in this league.
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