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Process this: Unlike 76ers, Pelicans are brilliantly rebuilt
From left: Pelicans Lonzo Ball, Zion Williamson and Jaxson Hayes PHOTOS BY: Jerome Miron, Geoff Burke, Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

Process this: Unlike 76ers, Pelicans are brilliantly rebuilt

When draft night was complete, the New Orleans Pelicans walked away with 18-year-old prodigy Zion Williamson, 19-year-old center Jaxson Hayes, 20-year-old guard Nickeil Alexander-Walker, an assortment of future second-round picks, and salary cap space for a max-level free agent. In the week since the Anthony Davis trade, New Orleans also added 21-year-old point guard Lonzo Ball, 21-year-old small forward Brandon Ingram, and 24-year-old combo guard Josh Hart, and subtracted the onerous final year of Solomon Hill’s contract. That’s six new players, all first-round picks, all age 24 and under. 

And speaking of first-round picks, the Pelicans also have control of the Lakers’ top selections from 2022-25. It’s all you would want out of a rebuild –- promising young players on cheap deals, cap flexibility, and a war chest of future assets -– and they didn’t even have to be miserable for years to get there.

From 2004-2012, the Philadelphia 76ers had a similar situation to New Orleans' history over the past decade or so. It made the playoffs five times, but lost in the first round four times. In 2013, new general manager Sam Hinkie started “The Process,” a ruthless rebuilding effort where Philadelphia stripped the team of all useful veterans, ignored free agency, and simply tried to lose as many games as possible to get high lottery picks. Sixers fans endured 253 losses in four years. High lottery picks sat out entire seasons, and second-rate players Hollis Thompson and Ish Smith led the team in minutes. If a player performed too well, he was shipped out of town, like 2014 Rookie of the Year Michael Carter-Williams.

All the while, the fans had to rally behind Hinkie and the front office, because there was nothing to root for on the court. Home games included rabid fans wearing T-shirts celebrating the general manager, a troubling phenomenon. The cult of Hinkie was so strong that people began advocating the scorched-earth rebuild for other franchises, as if the goal of basketball was to endlessly amass future assets, not win a game. Perhaps “cult” is too strong a word, but Hinkie did write a manifesto when he resigned in 2016. On the first page, he compared himself to Abraham Lincoln and Warren Buffet. Eventually the Sixers wound up with Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid, but at what cost?

The Pelicans managed to fit a huge part of their rebuilding effort into the very first week of the off-season. It certainly helps a rebuilding effort to win the lottery the same year that a generational talent is joining the NBA, but the Sixers did have the second overall pick in the draft lottery just three years before "The Process" began (although the No. 2 pick is cursed). It also helps to have a young superstar like Davis to trade, and a rival team so frantic to get him that they ignore all the salary cap rules to get the deal done. But they also rejected the idea that a team needs to bottom out in order to rise again. 

If he were running the Pelicans, Hinkie would have already traded Jrue Holiday, a second-teamer on the NBA All-Defensive team. We figure this would happen because he did trade Holiday to New Orleans in 2013 (and lied about his injury history). It can’t be great for team morale when playing well means you’re more likely to get sent out of town.

There’s no evidence that tanking is a good long-term strategy. Nine straight trips to the lottery haven’t turned the Phoenix Suns around yet, despite landing four top-5 picks along the way (their best draft pick, Devin Booker, went at No. 13.) What also doesn’t work is blindly choosing the best player available, regardless of position, as the Sixers did when they got centers Nerlens Noel, Joel Embiid, and Jahlil Okafor in the top six in consecutive years. (Check that: Embid is good.)

Of the Pelicans’ six new players, they have three guards, two forwards, and a center. Interestingly, their starting center could be the aforementioned Okafor, who thrived in New Orleans last year, perhaps due to the novelty of playing for a team that’s actually trying to win.

New Pelicans executive VP of basketball ops David Griffin also isn't afraid to trade down, turning the No. 4 into five additional picks simply by moving back to No. 8. He also ransomed the No. 39 pick to the Warriors, and got two future picks for his trouble. But the picks are also spread out, so they won’t end up with a situation like the Sixers faced this year, where they had four second-round picks and zero inclination to use them. They ended up dealing three of the four, including sending the the No. 42 pick to the Wizards just to dump Jonathan Simmons’ $1 million salary. The path to rounding out a roster around a superstar runs through the second round, the best way to find cheap contributors. New Orleans has essentially scheduled reinforcements and trade ammunition for the first five years of the Zion Era, even though said era is less than a day old.

More than anything, the Pelicans have given themselves options. In Ball, Alexander-Walker and Holiday, the Pelicans have a trio of big perimeter defenders to go with Zion, the long-armed Ingram, and shot-blocking Hayes. It’s a ton of young athletes and guys who can run the floor, perfect for fast-paced Coach Alvin Gentry and the freight train that is Williamson on a fast break. And they have enough cap space to add a superstar, if any of the 2019 free-agent class wants to sign on with Zion & Co. It’s not impossible to imagine the No. 8-seeded Pelicans giving the top seed a scare in the first round -– maybe even the AD-LeBron Lakers –- particularly if they add a shooter. Luckily, the Pelicans also stashed one in Brazil (Marcos Louzada Silva).

But beyond that, they’ve given the fan base in the Big Easy what was missing so often in Philadelphia: Hope. Hope that their team will compete long-term, hope that Zion slips into AD’s big shoes, and hope that they’re building a team, not just a portfolio of assets to be arbitraged into other assets, over and over.

It’s telling that while the Sixers reportedly talked about firing their coach deep into the playoffs, the Pelicans gave Gentry a contract extension through 2021. It’s almost like giving someone job security lets them relax and focus on their work. Overall, it shows that for a rebuilding team, you have to have a process, but it doesn’t have to be the relentless race to the bottom of The Process.

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