New Orleans has been waiting for the Pelicans to come together and maximize their potential for years. They took their first steps toward that at the beginning of last season, fighting hard to make it into the playoffs and put together an impressive stretch of basketball before their season unfortunately ended.

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As the offseason went on, things started to look better and better.

And then we saw this.

SHEESH, Zion.

Not long after, sounds of David Griffin's piano could be heard in the dreams of Pels fans when they heard about the contract extension of the monster formerly known as Zion Williamson.

Excitement for the Pels continued to grow, and somehow even me, in the middle of football season, found myself psyched up to watch preseason basketball of all things.

And then the Pels did stuff like this...

...and this...

...and this...

It's not hard to understand why, then, the home opener for the Pels is sold out.

This is big news for the team, as the Pelicans ranked 25th in the league in attendance last season, and in 2019 and 2018 (2020 and 2021 having wildly abnormal attendance numbers). Last year's home opener only filled about three quarters of Smoothie King Arena, affectionately known as the Blender.

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