NEW ORLEANS — “I know how this movie ends — still I play.”
This is one of Jay-Z’s most famous lines from his song “Allure,” which captures the temptation he’s felt in the past to relive some of the poor decisions he made in his younger years.
For New Orleans Pelicans fans, it certainly felt like they knew how a certain movie would end months ago. But unlike Jay-Z, there isn’t a lot of nostalgia for the good ol’ days going around New Orleans lately.
On Saturday, Pelicans lead executive Joe Dumars announced his decision to fire head coach Willie Green after four-plus seasons, primarily due to the team’s lifeless performance during a 2-10 start that has left fans more angry than disappointed.
Maybe folks didn’t expect Green to be gone before Thanksgiving, but so much of what’s gone wrong with the Pelicans to this point could’ve easily been predicted in July.
Their poor start to this season. Zion Williamson’s latest injury. The questionable usage of their rookies. The panic over the unprotected 2026 first-round pick that was given away to acquire one of those rookies. And their early-season firing of Green. All of it was just as surprising as the sun coming up in the morning.
That’s why the feeling for the fan base has gone beyond despair and moved toward disdain for the organization and its decisions over the past 18 months.
So much of it has felt avoidable, but those miscues led to former Pelicans lead executive David Griffin losing his job last April and Green being sent away seven months later.
Ultimately, both decisions were probably the right ones. While Green did have some impressive moments of triumph in New Orleans, it’s tough to overcome a 23-71 record over the last 94 games.
It’s even more difficult to excuse the lack of competitiveness his team showed in many of those defeats. Among the Pelicans’ 10 losses under Green, three were by 30 or more points, and another was a 23-point setback. There were too many nights when the effort and attention to detail were absent. That’s an issue very few coaches can overcome.
“I did not see us establishing anything in terms of an identity of who we’re going to be,” Dumars said while speaking to the media on Saturday. “Can we build an identity here? That’s really what I’m going to be looking for — a coach that’s really going to build an identity here — and that’s what’s going to go into the decision. Obviously, you want someone smart. You want someone who can communicate.
“But more than anything else, we have to build an identity here in New Orleans.”
The fact that the locker room checked out on Green shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone in that building. Whispers about players being unhappy with his lack of innovation with in-game tactics and substitution patterns began surfacing even before the 2024-25 season, team sources told The Athletic. That was part of the reason Griffin tried to relieve Green of his duties last season before being rebuffed by Pelicans ownership, league sources told The Athletic.
In the end, a lack of vision set the team back and left it vulnerable to this inevitable outcome.
Removing Green may provide a temporary sense of relief, especially for those who grew tired of him and his lack of emotion during some of the team’s lowest moments. But Green being gone won’t be enough to save this franchise from the consequences of its poor decisions.
Williamson’s future in New Orleans remains uncertain, especially if his injury problems persist. The anxiety over the first-round pick that was traded away to acquire Derik Queen will only intensify as the team keeps stockpiling losses. Concerns about decision-making at the front office and ownership levels will only grow as those who laughed at the Pelicans all summer are proven right.
And although any head-coaching vacancy in the NBA will be highly coveted, how many big-time coaching candidates will be lining up to pursue this job? With all the reasons listed above and not much of a path to escape the abyss this team is headed toward, will highly-respected names like Michael Malone or Taylor Jenkins even consider the Pelicans when other opportunities around the league will almost certainly open?
Remember how quickly top NFL coaching candidates like Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn looked elsewhere when the New Orleans Saints job opened up last summer? No one should be shocked if the Pelicans get that same treatment during this coaching search.
“You come in, you know it’s going to be a heavy lift. There’s going to be some bumps along the way,” Dumars said. “You can’t get depleted or down or discouraged when things don’t go as planned. That’s the hard work we have to do here. I would just say to the fans: We are as committed and obsessed with this as you can possibly be. We’re going to do the work to turn it around.”
James Borrego (right) has 4 1/2 seasons of head coaching experience and will serve as Pelicans interim head coach for the remainder of the season after Willie Green was fired. (Sean Gardner / Getty Images)
Dumars said he plans to have James Borrego as the interim head coach in New Orleans for the rest of the season, and it’ll be a great opportunity for someone with head-coaching experience to show what he can do with this roster.
Borrego, who coached the Charlotte Hornets from 2018-22, is an innovative offensive mind and has been heavily pursued by several teams over the past few offseasons. He nearly joined Mike Brown’s staff with the New York Knicks as an associate head coach before the Pelicans chose to retain him last summer, league sources told The Athletic.
He’s coming in with a vision of how he wants to use this roster, and the move may be exactly what the Pelicans need as they attempt to get the franchise back on track.
“It’s an identity that really resembles our community. It’s resilient. It’s tough. It has pride. It’s aggressive,” Borrego said Saturday when asked what he hopes to bring to the Pelicans as interim head coach. “It starts there. Just an overall physical, aggressive group that plays with force and plays together.”
This franchise has already dug itself a major hole. The Pelicans are already at the bottom of the Western Conference standings, fans are furious and there’s not even a first-round pick to look forward to next summer.
At this point, the only option is to go back to basics: playing hard consistently every night, putting a plan in place that’ll get the most out of the best assets on the roster and make it abundantly clear whether the priority within the building is winning now or developing talent for the future.
Those who laughed at the Pelicans and the moves they made last summer would’ve panned this team whether or not Green was fired. The lack of vision for the present and the future is what turned a team that won 49 games two years ago into one that can’t seem to do anything right these days.
On Saturday, Dumars emphasized multiple times that he wants a coach who’ll come in and establish what the identity of this team will be going into the future. But before that happens, the organization has to figure out what it wants to be.
Above all, it has to stop being the team that proves everyone right about how lost it is.