On Wednesday evening, the New Orleans Pelicans dropped to 0-4 on the young 2025 NBA season with a blowout road loss at the hands of the Denver Nuggets. The Pelicans entered this game with some question as to whether or not star Zion Williamson would be able to play due to injury, and even though the number one overall pick did indeed suit up, New Orleans didn't even come close to competing in this one.
Pelicans head coach Willie Green has already made some confounding decisions this season, but he might have taken the cake with Wednesday's decision to start DeAndre Jordan, who just recently signed with his team, for a matchup against his former Denver teammate, Nikola Jokic.
Jordan predictably struggled throughout the evening, finishing with just two points in 12 minutes, and although Jokic didn't necessarily put up one of his signature Herculean stat lines, it was still a borderline fireable offense from the New Orleans head coach.
Fans hoping that that would actually be the case got some good news on Thursday.
“There's a growing sentiment that Willie Green will be fired upon returning from this road trip. So every decision in the face of that is interesting to evaluate,” reported Shamit Dua on Bluesky.
A disastrous start for the Pelicans
Generally, a team that gets off to a bad start to the year at least has the option in the back of their mind to fully embrace bottoming out and trying to compete for a top lottery pick.
New Orleans, however, doesn't have that luxury because their general manager Joe Dumars, who was hired without a formal process, decided it would be a good idea to trade the team's 2026 first round pick (or Milwaukee's, depending on whose is higher) to the Atlanta Hawks in order to move up five slots in this year's draft to select Derik Queen, who plays the same position as Williamson and has gotten off to a slow start.
In other words, the Pelicans could very easily be among the worst teams in the NBA this year and have nothing to show for it.
Not the start Pelicans fans were hoping for.
