I am here to answer the question everyone is dying to know the answer to. TL;DR at the bottom.
The official state bird of Louisiana is the brown pelican (*Pelecanus occidentalis*), so I will be using this species for my calculations. The brown pelican has an average wingspan of around 80 inches, with an average weight of around 7.5 pounds. There actually is very little information on the lifting capacity of a flying pelican, so we’ll have to do some guesswork by comparing it to another species.
In order to create a proper comparison, we want to eliminate unnecessarily variables. One variable that greatly contributes to the lift a bird can produce is the surface area of its wings. Therefore, we will compare the brown pelican to a species with a similar wingspan. The bald eagle (*Haliaeetus leucocephalis*) has an average wingspan of approximately 81″, and weighs around 10lb. Males and females vary greatly in size, so I am using the average weight and wingspan of the two.
So, we have determined that brown pelican and bald eagles are roughly similar in size. Per Google, bald eagles can carry around 5-6 pounds, so we’ll call it 5.5. However, bald eagles are some of the strongest birds in the world, so it wouldn’t make sense to assume a pelican of the same size could carry the same amount. Their muscular and skeletal structure is not built for the same kind of speed and power as that of an eagle. However, we must also consider that they are lighter than an eagle of the same wingspan, meaning they have a lower pull of gravity to overcome. So, considering all this information, and through a very scientific method of pulling numbers out of my ass (something this sub is likely familiar with), I will guess that an average pelican can lift roughly 3.247 pounds.
From here on out, the math is simple: Zion’s official weight, per NBA.com, is 284 lb. Divide his weight by 3.247 pounds, and we can conclude that it would take around 88 pelicans (87.5 to be more exact, but we have to round to a whole number of pelicans) to air-lift Zion out of New Orleans in the event of a catastrophic flood.
But wait! This is of course ignoring the weight of the cables used to attach him to said 88 pelicans, which is very critical to our calculations. Ignoring such added weight could mean the difference between a safe rescue and sleeping with the fishes.
Even 1/4″ steel rope is much too heavy, weighing 0.116 lb/ft. Instead, we will use 1/4″ nylon rope, weighing 0.0167 lb/ft. In order to have enough space for the pelicans to adequately fly, I will estimate that we will need around 40 feet of rope per pelican. That equates to 0.667 pounds per pelican. This takes our new max lifting weight per pelican (lb/pel) to 2.48. Re-doing the calculations, we now need 110.07 pelicans, which rounds up to 111. We should probably add in 5 pounds for a secure harness as well to make sure Zion doesn’t fall out, plus 2 pounds of clothing to be safe, bringing our total pelican count to 117.34, or 118.
However, there is one more crucial aspect we must consider: factor of safety (FoS). This is an engineering principle that expresses how much stronger a system is than it needs to be for an intended load. This is because calculations are not always perfect, so we need to account for that error and be positive we are creating something safe. Since we are designing a flying apparatus, the usual FoS for aircraft is 1.5. However, due to the inaccurate nature and guesswork of the calculations, and the valuable nature of the asset as an NBA superstar, we will use a FoS of 2. This brings our final total to 234.68, which means **we would need 235 pelicans to evacuate Zion Williamson in the event of a flood.**
Thank you all for coming to my TED Talk. This post was inspired by [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/15hbvkw/which_nba_team_is_in_the_worst_postion/juoet54/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=) comment by u/nukethedogphilly. I was gonna be extra and include a works cited section but this has already taken way too much effort for a shitpost.
**TL;DR: 235 pelicans**
Edit: [Bonus content](https://imgur.com/a/Xnj6TSJ)
by Neekalos_
41 Comments
wow, you need to go outside.
Your mom
Idk man, we may need to import some pelicans from out of state
See this is what I use this subreddit for. To find the REAL answers to important questions since none of y’all want to talk basketball anyways.
I think we should establish a fund for him. He is injured a lot. So, thereās a couple of reasons that he will not fulfill his potential.
He needs help. I will establish a fund for him. Who interest in this campaign?
I will sell my house to have a fund for him. Everyone must helps me.
2 – one to call the EMTs, the other to mix the drinks
Damn almost one bird for each pound
This is what we F5 in the off-season for boys.
African or European?
I’d take the weight of the eagle and divide it by the pelican’s weight for more accuracy
[here’s dunkey saying pelican](https://youtu.be/XnLguForuh4)
Whoās got the better throat game bag ā a pelican or Moriah?
OP I you want to call Zion fat just say it. No need to use all those extra words.
Who are you, who are so wise in the ways of science?
Guard: Are you suggesting that Zion migrates?
King Arthur: Not at all. He could be carried.
Guard: What? Pelicans carrying Zion?
King Arthur: They could grip him by the husk!
Guard: It’s not a question of where they grip him! It’s a simple question of weight ratios! A seven pound bird could not carry a 284 pound Zion.
King Arthur: Well, it doesn’t matter. Will you go and tell your master that Arthur from the Court of Camelot is here?
Guard: Listen. In order to maintain air-speed velocity, a pelican needs to beat its wings forty-three times every second, right?
King Arthur: Please!
Guard: Am I right?
King Arthur: I’m not interested!
[A second guard approaches the parapet]
Guard 2: It could be carried by an African pelican!
Guard 1: Oh yeah. An African pelican, maybe — but not a European pelican, that’s my point.
Guard 2: Oh yeah, I agree with that.
King Arthur: [exasperated] Will you ask your master if he wants to join my court at Camelot?!
Guard 1: But, of course, African pelicans are non-migratory.
Guard 2: Oh, yeah.
[Arthur begins to depart]
Guard 1: …So they couldn’t bring Zion back anyway.
Bravo! Peak off season post.
Are we talking Beijing 29ā deep or like George Bush just blew up the levees and my house is under water deep?
None, cetaceans are very good swimmers
I wasnāt expecting to see this until tomorrowā¦..
What if they did it middle-out?
It probably took more minutes for the OP to type this than Zion will play for the rest of his career.
Zero. Man can float.
If you are referring to the pelicans of the Finnish hockey league, [Frankly I think the assistant coach can handle it](https://youtu.be/Dr9f7VNqCxk).
“(87.5 to be more exact, but we have to round to a whole number of pelicans)”
Idk why this part killed me š
Oh, I love the off season.
Couldn’t you also get the weight by seeing if they can achieve a flight with their mouth full of water? If they can multiple the volume of their mouth by 62.4 lbs/ft^3 and there we go.
Since we have a tenuous connection between the NBA and Monty Python and the Holy Grail, I nominate Ben Simmons for Sir Robin, the not quite so brave as Sir Lancelot.
āWhen Trae Young reared his ugly head, Ben Simmons turned his tail and fledā
If it’s just a flood wouldn’t Zion float?
No Pelicans needed
I canāt wait for the World Cup to start
You guys didn’t already know this?
I’m convinced half the people on this sub don’t even watch the games
“To evacuate a person is to give that a person an enema” – The Wire https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeYwa-DCiWk&t=12s
You may need an extra pelican if this is before his morning shit.
Not enough Pelicans on earth for this.
I need an image of this using AI.
Peak offseason content. I wonder how much we need to account for drag of such a large mass while the birds are in flight along with uneven tensile distribution of the cables. I think you FOS of 2 is likely enough to overcome these factors, but it key that the cables evenly share tension among the birds or else we will see a cascading failure where individual birds are unable to hold the weight of cables which are seeing too much load.
This shitpost has definitely given inspiration to some math or physics teacher to write silly test questions at Zion’s expense.
I bet at least 1 Warriors fan out there wrote a statistics problem around showing how much Harrison Barnes underperformed in the 2015-2016 finals. Shit would be kinda fun to do as a teacher. You get to inject your sports opinions into the test questions.
[Context](https://youtu.be/liIlW-ovx0Y)
What youāre failing to account for is the additional weight of a waterlogged Zion. This is difficult to calculate since it depends on what clothes heās wearing and how absorbent they are but we should begin with the assumption that heās wearing his nba regulation game uniforms. This will make a significant difference in the weight involved.
Some things which are difficult even for humans, in an exercise like this we tend to think, well we’re not talking about humans so I guess they’re magically perfect.
But more realistically pelicans are insufferable assholes and bad at everything.
You’ll need some management pelicans, as 200+ is clearly too many to manage themselves. 34 of them would put each in charge of a group of 8, about enough for an Agile team. And the management pelicans will be lifting zero pounds of Zion, I am pretty sure.
You’ll need around 50 alternate pelicans on standby in case some of these 234 flake, which they will. Pay them for an hour if they’re not needed. If they’re unemployed they’ll take it.
You can tell them to bring their own lunches… but sometimes you should just go ahead and feed your giant carnivorous birds. Zion does look kind of delicious. Anyway, a dozen food service pelicans could catch fish and bring it to the lifter pelicans.
And then, while you won’t *need* an extra 400 pelicans who do nothing helpful at all, there always seems to be that many on the payroll so just don’t be too surprised.
Something something moriah mills
Zionās not a superstar. I think we can bring his FoS down to 1.35
This is the type of S-tier off-season content that keeps me going