The 2023–24 New Orleans Pelicans season was the 22nd season of the New Orleans Pelicans franchise in the National Basketball Association (NBA). The team returned to the playoffs after a one-year absence defeating the Sacramento Kings in the second game of the NBA play-in tournament after losing to the Los Angeles Lakers in the first game. However, they were swept in the first round by the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder.
The Pelicans had one first-round pick entering the draft.[1]
This was the first regular season where all the NBA teams competed in a mid-season tournament setting due to the implementation of the 2023 NBA In-Season Tournament.[2][3] During the in-season tournament period, the Pelicans competed in Group B of the Western Conference, which included the defending champion Denver Nuggets, the Los Angeles Clippers, the Dallas Mavericks, and the Houston Rockets. Despite having a couple of scares by not only losing to the Houston Rockets and barely not scoring enough points to overtake the Phoenix Suns for the wild card spot had it been deemed necessary, the Pelicans ultimately managed to secure Group B's top seed for the in-season tournament. In the first knockout round, the Pelicans beat the winners of Group C, the Sacramento Kings, by a final score of 127-117 on the road. Tragically, during that night, a 34-year-old Kings fan named Gregorio "Greg" Florez Breedlove had a medical emergency during the first quarter of that game and died 20 minutes after emergency medical services arrived to try and help him out.[4][5] For their semifinal game that also counted as their 82nd game of the regular season, their opponent was the Los Angeles Lakers, who were considered the home team in the neutral site of the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada due to their record in the In-Season Tournament. The Pelicans would suffer a brutal, crushing defeat to the Lakers in their December 7 match-up, with the Lakers winning 133-89 that night.