Leave it to the Pelicans to fill their playmaking void with an aggressive move for Dejounte Murray yet still not emerge as obvious offseason winners. They simply can’t when the oft-discussed deal for Brandon Ingram never materialized, and their big-man rotation appears to be the Association’s worst by a wide margin (Jonas Valančiūnas and Larry Nance Jr. out; Daniel Theis and rookie Yves Missi in).

Ingram is a talented player, but he lacks the volume shooting, off-ball ability and defensive acumen of an ideal costar for Zion Williamson. Even worse, Ingram’s presence potentially blocks the path to major minutes for Trey Murphy III, who checks most of those Williamson-complement boxes. And while Ingram and Murphy could theoretically coexist, that could only really happen by reducing the role of Herbert Jones, an All-Defensive first-teamer who just authored the best shooting campaign of his career (49.8/41.8/86.7 shooting slash).

It’s tempting to wager on a team this talented figuring things out, but the pieces seemingly come from several different puzzles, and that center rotation is an eyesore. The Pelicans should be in play-in contention, but writing their name in anything other than pencil or erasable ink feels overly ambitious given the depth of the Western Conference.