By crushing Carmelo Anthony’s ‘what if’, Pelicans could have toppled NBA giants

The New Orleans Pelicans are 15-41 and 14th in the Western Conference after the All-Star break, and with no control over their 2026 first-round pick, it’s hard to stay positive. So why not revisit a painful “what-if” issue?

The idea comes from a recent episode of Carmelo Anthony’s podcast “7:00 PM in Brooklyn”, where he invited former Pelicans center DeMarcus Cousins ​​as a guest. The two talked about many different things, such as Team USA basketball and Kobe Bryant, but the one thing that really stood out was the discussion about Melo may join New Orleans for the 2017-2018 season.

Anthony said that before he was traded from New York to Oklahoma City, the Pelicans expressed interest and even gave him a Pelicans jersey during recruiting calls. Ultimately, the team waited too long and led to Sam Presti’s plan to build a contender Anthony to join the Oklahoma City thunder.

That season, the Pelicans won 48 games and secured the sixth seed in the West, but fell short in the playoffs after Cousins ​​suffered a season-ending Achilles injury in January.

The team that never was

Assuming things had been different and New Orleans had acquired Melo, the Pelicans would have had a team built to potentially dethrone the power. Golden State Warriors are led by Kevin Durant. The Warriors’ only roster mistake during those runs was the center position.

Imagine this setup: prime Cousins, averaging 25+ points and 12+ rebounds, paired with Anthony Davis, who finished as a top-three candidate in both MVP and Defensive Player of the Year. Already a defensive problem for Golden State, the team would have gotten a true third offensive option in Melo, whose floor spacing would have opened up the playing field.

The backcourt would have featured Rajon Rondo, one of the league’s best offensive conductors at the time, averaging eight points and eight assists per game, alongside lockdown perimeter guard Jrue Holiday, who averaged 19 points per game and earned All-Defensive First Team that season. By surrounding them with reliable role players like E’Twaun Moore and Darius Miller, and a late-season steal in Nikola Mirotic, the Pelicans could have built a team to dethrone the Warriors in the West.

Melo’s presence could have even prevented Cousins’ Achilles injury by having another scorer to share the offensive load – Boogie would have been fresher and healthier for the postseason.

The Melo-Davis-Boogie trio would certainly have made waves in the Western Conference, but that’s just a hypothesis. While these types of scenarios are fun to imagine, they also serve as a grim reminder of how far the Pelicans have fallen since the Davis era ended and the Zion era began.