The New Orleans Pelicans under third-year head coach Willie Green are in the same spot as last season but have a far brighter outlook. This year's 26-18 start matches the last but there are a few big differences. First, Zion Williamson and the rest of the Pelicans' roster are relatively healthy. Secondly, after surviving two challenging years to start the job, Green is comfortable being ‘open-minded' when building his rotations.
Green's coaching career is littered with long stretches of patchwork rotations and skeleton crew starting lineups. Anyone not on the injury report was likely to get minutes out of necessity. Not this season. The Pelicans are working with a relatively healthy roster around Williamson, Brandon Ingram, and CJ McCollum. The Detroit Mercy alum agreed that patching together rotations is akin to artwork.
“I think it is (like artwork). When you have this much to work with I think it's a bit of feel that comes with it,” Green shared. “Overcommunicating with our players so that they understand why we do some things. You want them to be on board so explaining the why and making sure we get feedback is important. It's a little bit of science too watching some of the numbers. You factor all of that information in it helps you make the best decisions that you fear.”
Green has quite the palette and canvas to work with around former All-Stars Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram but there is a line for every NBA player when it comes to over-communicating. The kid from Cooley High is self-aware enough to know where players will draw that line. He held down an NBA roster spot for over a decade after all. The Michigan native knows an overly persistent message becomes white noise.
“I'm very mindful of it. I don't think I can do it enough,” admitted Green. “Matter of fact there are always improvements on my end to make sure I'm communicating with our team, our staff, what's best for our group.”
The message going into the last three weeks before the NBA All-Star break?
“It's just the consistency. Not coming into the game and having moments where we are not consistent for 48 minutes,” Green stressed. “It starts with our effort…We have to come into games with the right mindset. We're going to outwork, out-compete, and we're going to play together. They'll make some runs. When they do, those are the moments I've talked about before. We have to trust, even overtrust in the things we work on, and trust each other.”
Pelicans making game-by-game tweaks to rotations
The starting five lineup has its issues and Green has already shared some of the new approaches to make that group more efficient. He has been reluctant to change up from a more traditional lineup at the tip but the Pelicans need second-half energy. It's a publically admitted weakness by Green. That's why Larry Nance Jr. started the second half of a 153-124 franchise record-setting win over the visiting Utah Jazz. Jonas Valanciunas did not take it personally.
“(Valanciunas) makes it easy because of who he is,” Green said. “High character. True professional. Understands the landscape of where our team is, where he is as a player, and at the end of the day he wants to win.
The Pelicans are leaning heavily into the Point Zion experiment to start games. That's expected to be Williamson's role through the NBA All-Star break, per Green. The new configuration out of halftime is a wait-and-see game-by-game decision, however. Nothing is set in stone for New Orleans once there are points on the scoreboard.
“We'll continue to evaluate what it looks like,” Green allowed. “Really for us, I want to try and help our first unit and sometimes it'll be implementing Larry. Getting guys out early will help that group.”
Green did elaborate on getting to experiment in year three after practice, showing a comfort level both on the court and in the press scrums.
“I think the luxury of having as many guys as we do that can come in and contribute gives me the opportunity to be more flexible in those areas,” replied Green. “I definitely want to stay open-minded to what helps this team win games…We talked about how we've had a number of so-called big games against some really good opponents that we haven't played our best basketball. We want to be better in that area. We want to play against the top-tier teams. We want to measure ourselves, and see where we are.”
Green has around three dozen games to get the rotations right for the NBA Playoffs. He knows the spotlight gets brighter in those situations, and his rotations have to withstand that heat. If not, Green will have painted himself into a corner going into Year Four. NBA Play-In Tournament and first-round exits will not suffice with this roster going forward.
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