On the strength of an MVP-caliber season from Anthony Davis, the New Orleans Pelicans ended a three-year playoff drought last spring. They finished the regular season by winning eight of their last 11 games, edging the Kevin Durant-less Oklahoma City Thunder for the eighth seed in the Western Conference.

The eventual NBA champion Golden State Warriors swept the Pelicans, but the series was perhaps the closest four-game sweep of all-time. Only Game 4 was decided by more than 10 points and the Warriors needed a furious fourth-quarter comeback to force overtime and eventually win Game 3.

Even more encouraging than New Orleans’ team performance was the individual dominance of Davis, who averaged 31.5 points, 11 rebounds and 3.0 blocks while shooting 54% in the series. He played 172 of a possible 197 minutes. It series was his national coming-out-party.

It would be an understatement to say Davis and the Pelicans entered this season with higher expectations. Bovada gave Davis the second-best odds (behind LeBron James and ahead of Stephen Curry) to win MVP honors (4/1) and John Schuhmann’s annual GM survey was even kinder. GMs tabbed Davis as the player they’d most like to build around, while also rating him as the No. 2 MVP candidate and giving New Orleans 14.3% of votes as the team that would be the most improved in 2015-16.

The next logical step for the Pelicans after hiring Alvin Gentry to improve their offense was to challenge for homecourt advantage in the first round.

So what went wrong?

His shooting percentages were down a bit -- a three-point shot is being incorporated, which must be considered -- but Davis was largely as productive as he was a year ago. But he appeared in just 61 games as a disturbing trend begins to form. In four NBA seasons, Davis has missed an average of 17 games per year. That’s a tough burden to place on a team without a clear No. 2 star and it makes impossible to realize MVP aspirations. There’s also that little clause in his contract that will pay him an extra $24 million if he is named to one of the three All-NBA teams.

Unfortunately for the Pelicans, Davis’ health wasn’t the only concern.

They’ve been without Quincy Pondexter (knee) for the entire season. He was vital to their attack on both sides of the ball and helped stretch defenses when he shot 43.3% from three after coming over in a trade with the Memphis Grizzlies last February.

Tyreke Evans (right knee) has been limited to 25 games, Norris Cole (back, ankle) and Eric Gordon (hand) to 45. Jrue Holiday (foot, orbital bone) has missed 17 games and Ryan Anderson (groin) has been forced to sit out 16 contests. When you look at the entirety of the Pelicans’ roster, including short stints from Nate Robinson, Jimmer Fredette and Orlando Johnson, they have lost nearly 350 games to injury this season – the highest total of any team since at least the 2009-10 campaign.

“This is definitely the most I’ve been through, although I was in Portland when they were going through a tough stretch with Greg Oden and Brandon Roy,” Luke Babbitt told RealGM. “This has been pretty rough.”

Babbitt was referring to the 2010-11 Blazers, who saw Oden miss the season after undergoing microfracture surgery. The setback came after the former No. 1 overall pick lost all but 21 games to a fractured patella the previous year.

Cracks began to appear in Roy’s career early in ‘10-11 when his knees, which lack cartilage, began to bother him severely. He appeared in 47 games that season, having surgery and eventually becoming limited to a reserve role. He would miss the entire next year before attempting a brief five-game comeback with the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2012.

In addition to their five best players, the Pelicans have also seen Alexis Ajinca, Bryce Dejean-Jones and Alonzo Gee land on the injury report. Dejean-Jones might be the most disturbing case. He signed a few 10-day deals before inking a three-year deal on Feb. 19. Just a week later, he fractured his right wrist in practice.

The Pelicans have largely remained competitive despite a 10-19 mark after the All-Star break.

“The coaching staff has done a good job of keeping the system simple,” Babbitt said of Gentry and his assistants. “It’s really all about energy for us. Coach has done a good job of drawing up plays for certain guys, but if we come out and compete every night and we’ll give ourselves a chance to win.”

Dell Demps has done a great job of finding fill-ins from the D-League that fit in nicely with what is left of the expected roster. If you remove a 125-107 loss to the Warriors on March 14 -- New Orleans’ defeats have come by an average of 9.5 points since Feb. 19. They’ve beaten the Clippers and pushed both the Spurs and Celtics over the last month. 

“The biggest challenge is we’re just all new. Tim [Frazier], Jordan [Hamilton] and James [Ennis] have all done a great job. Basketball is a game of rhythm and chemistry, so that’s the biggest challenge,” Babbitt added. “We’re trying to build chemistry with one another on both ends, those are all things that come with time.” 

On April 6 in Boston, the Pelicans sent out a starting five of Toney Douglas, Ennis, Dante Cunningham, Alexis Ajinca and Omer Asik. The offense was run through Ajinca, who has averaged 5.3 points over 254 career games, and a narrow loss to the playoff-bound Celtics ended with Frazier holding his ankle in pain.

Afterward, Gentry joked: “My guess is he’ll be out the next two and a half years.”

Two days later, Frazier logged 26 minutes, dishing 12 assists, in a victory over the Lakers. 

Gentry, who has kept the Pelicans afloat thanks to an improbably positive attitude, has used 41 different starting lineups this season. Forty-one. He was an assistant on Steve Kerr’s staff last year when the Warriors won it all on the strength of a very healthy core.

“We’re not trying different lineups, we’re forced to play different lineups,” Gentry cracked last week in Boston. “We would love to be able to have the lineup we anticipated having, but we’ve not really had that for one day. We could sit here and whine about it or move on and continue to try to play. We chose to move on and continue to try to play.”

On any given night, the Pelicans have been without the services of more than four players because of injury. The rash of ailments led a voodoo priest to label the club as “jinxed.” Gentry has even been forced to wear his scouting hat in pregame media scrums, going as far to as offer a 10-day contract to a middle-aged reporter in the bowels of TD Garden.

“If you want to dress out, I’ll give you a uniform and you could probably get 15 minutes,” Gentry joked to the delight of the failed athletes turned media members recording his every word. 

“It’s been a very frustrating season, but it’s almost over.” 

Mercifully, it is.