New Orleans is coming off a 26-56 season and starts this one under Jamahl Mosley. Yahoo's preseason power rankings have them 27th and project 27.5 wins. The good news is Zion Williamson. His listed weight dropped from 284 to 277, he went 5-for-5 from the field in 18 minutes against Dallas, and he took 3 threes in 1 half against Washington. He attempted 4 all of last season. The Pelicans went 3-1 in the preseason and closed it with a 107-106 win over the Wizards.
Jeremiah Fears is the swing piece. The All-Rookie guard averaged 30 points on 60% true shooting over his final 6 games last year. Dejounte Murray sat the Wizards finale with a toe injury, so the starting backcourt spot Murray and Fears were competing for is still open. Murray missed most of last season after rupturing his Achilles, which makes 2 guards in this game coming back from that injury. If Murray can't go, the ball belongs to Fears, and that's not a bad outcome for New Orleans.
The matchup problem for New Orleans is the one every preview flagged. A lot of its core players score in the paint, and none of them is a real defensive stopper. That's a rough setup against a Haliburton-Siakam pick-and-roll that wants to run. Trey Murphy III and Herb Jones give Mosley some length on the wings. Derik Queen and Saddiq Bey add size and scoring. Bennedict Mathurin, who started his career in Indiana, gets the team that drafted him on opening night.
Tip is 7:00 PM CT. The only result that counts so far is a scoreline of 0-0. For Indiana, the scoreboard is secondary to Haliburton's minutes and whether the bench is healthy enough to cover for him. For New Orleans, the opener is a first look at whether a healthy Zion and a second-year Fears add up to more than the 26 wins they got last year.