The Big Uneasy of Pelicans playoff tickets

Pelicans Insider subscribers received this in an email Tuesday.
Pelicans Insider subscribers received this in an email Tuesday.

By BILLY JOE JESSUP

I long for the good old days when the New Orleans Pelicans were bad.

You could pay an online ticket re-seller just $15 for the privilege of sitting in the upper reaches of the Smoothie King Center and watching the Norris Coles of the NBA world lose their way in a 30-win season.

Now the Pelicans are really good but they have a playoff ticket picture so bad it might as well be pixelated. It’s a confusing situation, one reported as a snafu, and I’ll put emphasis on the last two letters of snafu.

The presale Monday for Western Conference semifinal tickets was an f u of sorts. It was fouled up and it led to New Orleans media retweets of Pelicans news Tuesday.

Here are two of them:

 

 

The Pelicans, who swept the Portland Trail Blazers 4-0 in the first round, will play the defending champion Golden State Warriors in the conference semis.

I would like to attend one of the Warriors-Pelicans games at the SKC, but I have a lot of concerns.

I hope there will be no afternoon games. That would be too early for me to drive 75 minutes from Mississippi to New Orleans because I’m a night owl. Even a 4 p.m. tipoff would be out of the question for me.

I’m anxious about the price of tickets. I expect no good deals. I bet the $15 ticket in the upper reaches will be more like $150 because it’s the playoffs.

I’m pessimistic about the rescheduled presale, which will be at 2 p.m. Wednesday. Will I forget all about it? Will I get the wrong code? Will there be a $40 ticket? I’m more than happy to pay that. Will I find one and then lose it if my laptop freezes?

This is my Big Uneasy and I don’t think I can handle the pressure.

I’m caving in. I’ll save money and watch the games on my big TV in my little living room.

Written by Billy Joe Jessup

Billy Joe Jessup, 66, is a Mississippi good old boy who saw himself as the Southern Richard Meltzer back in 1974 and 1975. Jessup wrote two satiric sports articles for the rock music magazine Zoo World when he was in his early 20s, but ZW rejected his third article, killing his confidence so much that he battled writer's block for more than four decades until his Guy Hut breakthrough in March 2018.