The New Orleans Pelicans have nothing to play for on Sunday night when the Warriors come to town, as they are locked into the 9-seed in the West and will host the San Antonio Spurs in Tuesday’s first play-in game.
Like a number of teams around the league who are locked into position (or don’t care if they move up or down in the standings), that means a lot of rest for the top players, but unlike some of those teams, not everyone will be sitting out in totality. While the Bucks, for instance, have announced Giannis Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton, and Brook Lopez are among the players sitting against Cleveland, New Orleans will still run the likes of CJ McCollum out there to start the game.
However, when an inquiring fan asked why McCollum wasn’t on the injury report for some rest, he explained the plan is to play some minutes to stay sharp and then park it on the bench for the remainder. As such, he provided a PSA to fans not to put him “in your parlays tonight.”
https://twitter.com/CJMcCollum/status/1513224226991398915
This is why CJ is a pro, because he knows that if he didn’t say this, some idiots would bombard his mentions complaining about lost bets on his point total and now he can, at least, point to this as him having given them ample warning not to do that.