The acquisition of Dejounte Murray in the offseason ignited a lot of hype for the New Orleans Pelicans back then, which would have been the perfect answer after they went out of the playoffs last season in a sweep. But things seem to get much worse even with Zion Williamson back in the lineup for the Pelicans.

Surprisingly, Zion Williamson is the longest-tenured player in the Pelicans roster, and it cannot be denied that there are a lot of talks as to how he can actually make an impact in his return for the first time in a long while. Playing just eight games as of the time of writing, it does seem that Williamson should be the big key to helping them win it all.

However, that’s not the scenario that they are facing right now. The Pelicans are one of four teams below the 10-win mark, and the only team in the Western Conference not to breach double-digit wins. Even with Zions, it does seem that things aren’t really going to change much for the team at this point in time.

Odds Dropping 

New Orleans started out the season with odds of +5000, which is certainly better than at least 12 teams in the league when odds were first calculated. The Pelicans were coming off an impressive push and win in the Play-In Tournament. However, they would go on to be swept by the rising Oklahoma City Thunder, playing without Zion in that campaign as well.

However, they would go on to trade Jonas Valanciunas – in favor of giving a chance to a rookie big man in Yves Missi, who is also impressing well in the season so far, even leading in the rookie race. As things stand, however, that is certainly not helping the Pelicans at a bigger level at this point.

As of the time of writing, the Pelicans are dead last in both the Western Conference and even in the odds, with most sportsbooks setting them at +100,000 – which is arguably quite worse than any fan could expect. At this point, there’s just little hope that the Pelicans can bounce back from this – and not even Zion’s return has boosted their chance by a bit.

The Zion Effect

There’s not even a Zion in effect for the Pelicans so far. He has attempted 15 field goals in his two recent games in January, with the most recent one resulting in a loss to the Celtics, where he made just five of those attempts. So far, it hasn’t been really quite impactful – whether Zion really makes his big games shine, and that’s a big problem for the team at this point in time.

A turnaround? It is not impossible. The Boston Celtics began the season with an 18-21 record before turning it all around in January before finishing with a 51-31 record, for the second seed in the Eastern Conference. But if the Pelicans are going to pull this off, they will need all the help they can get and ensure that all hands are on deck.

Zion, who is currently averaging 21.8 points, 7.6 rebounds, and 4.9 assists per game on 45.5% field goal percentage, has to step up on a bigger scale. He is, after all, the captain of the team, but he will have to do bigger things if the Pelicans are going to win it all.