The New Orleans Pelicans have fired coach Willie Inexperienced after a 2-10 begin to the season, the group introduced Saturday.
Inexperienced was doomed by a depressing 0-6 begin and accidents to his greatest gamers. Zion Williamson has performed simply 5 video games because of a hamstring harm, an ailment he has suffered in 4 straight seasons.
The Pelicans had been the primary group in NBA historical past to lose three of their first six video games by at the very least 30 factors, after permitting at the very least 120 factors in 5 straight video games to start a season for the primary time in franchise historical past, in accordance with ESPN Analysis.
New Orleans is on a four-game dropping streak, together with a 118-104 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday. The Pelicans are a bottom-five group in each offensive and defensive score this season, in accordance with ESPN Analysis.
Inexperienced was in his fifth season as Pelicans coach, and he finishes with a 150-190 file, together with postseason appearances in 2021-22 and 2023-24.
“It actually wasn’t the won-lost file as the last word figuring out issue. That was not it,” Pelicans government vp of basketball operations Joe Dumars mentioned. “I used to be very clear from the very starting, there was no mandate that you need to win a certain quantity of video games. There wasn’t even a mandate that, ‘Oh, you need to make the play-in or the playoffs.’ We’ve to determine who we’ll be right here in New Orleans going ahead, and I simply didn’t see that occuring. And that was greater than anything what is the figuring out issue right here.”
Assistant James Borrego will turn into the interim coach for the Pelicans. Borrego, the previous Charlotte Hornets coach, was a finalist for the Lakers and Cleveland Cavaliers head teaching jobs in 2024. The New York Knicks and Denver Nuggets additionally supplied Borrego lead assistant jobs through the offseason, however he stayed in New Orleans.
Dumars mentioned the plan is for Borrego to be the interim coach for the rest of the season.
When Williamson is wholesome, he is usually a pressure. He’s averaging 22.8 factors, 6.8 rebounds, 4.6 assists and a pair of.0 steals per sport this season. However he has been out since Nov. 4 after being restricted to 30 and 29 video games in two of the earlier three seasons.
Inexperienced additionally needed to coach with out Jordan Poole, who missed video games with a left quad pressure. And level guard Dejounte Murray stays out as he works his manner again from a torn Achilles suffered on the finish of January.
Dumars made a number of key strikes within the offseason, such because the acquisitions of Poole and Kevon Looney.
The Pelicans have loads of incentive to win video games. They traded an unprotected 2026 first-round choose to the Atlanta Hawks on draft night time for the No. 13 general choose to pick Derik Queen. Whereas Queen has impressed with extra taking part in time since early November and No. 7 general choose Jeremiah Fears has began video games and displayed potential, the choose despatched to Atlanta could possibly be a high choose in what is anticipated to be a draft containing potential franchise expertise.
New Orleans additionally traded one other 2026 first-rounder again to the Indiana Pacers to accumulate the No. 23 choose in 2025. By transferring each their very own and the Pacers’ first-round picks, the Pelicans at present don’t have any firsts in 2026.
Requested if he has any concern about not having a first-round choose, Dumars mentioned: “There isn’t any sense in me worrying about it now. It is executed. … I am involved in regards to the guys we’ve got right here, the fellows we drafted and watching them develop and the gamers they turn into. I’m not sitting right here frightened in regards to the choose that we do not have.”
Dumars mentioned all taking part in time and rotation selections belong to Borrego and that he is not placing any necessities on the coach to play or begin Fears and Queen.
“I mentioned to him, ‘I’m going to help no matter you need to do,'” Dumars mentioned. “‘It is your name. I am not the coach. I’m by no means going to be the coach. I by no means need to be the coach. It is your name, James. Nonetheless you need to go along with this, I’m going to help you one hundred pc.’ I made that very clear to him this morning. … He would not have a mandate from me that you need to play this man or minutes, none of that.”
Inexperienced was employed by the Pelicans in 2021 off the Western Convention champion Phoenix Suns’ teaching employees as a well-regarded rising assistant within the league. Inexperienced’s greatest season was in 2023-24 when New Orleans received 49 video games earlier than being swept by the Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder within the first spherical.
Inexperienced’s exit comes months after David Griffin was changed by Dumars in April.