Joe Dumars made his stance on the New Orleans Pelicans pretty clear without ever needing a speech.
He didn’t treat a 26-56 season like proof the roster needed to be blown up. Instead, New Orleans kept the group largely intact, bringing back about 93 percent of last year’s playing minutes and making its biggest changes in the places fans don’t always see first: the sideline, the support staff, and the basketball operations structure.
That’s the real story of this Pelicans offseason. The players mostly stayed. The coaches did not.
Willie Green is out, James Borrego is out, and Jamahl Mosley is in after an extensive search. Around him, the franchise also reworked much of the machinery that supports the roster, from medical and strength and conditioning to analytics, player personnel, and basketball operations. God Shammgod was added as a front-of-the-bench assistant and player-development specialist.
The front office’s message is simple: the talent was already there. The challenge was finding the right way to use it.
New Orleans resisted the kind of roster overhaul plenty of lottery teams lean into after a season like that. DeAndre Jordan was re-signed to keep veteran leadership and frontcourt depth in place.
Hunter Dickinson returned on a two-way contract after turning heads in Summer League. The Pelicans also added second-round pick Jaron Pierre Jr., whose scoring and confidence have already stood out.
The only notable departures were Kevon Looney, whose option was declined before he signed with the Lakers, and guard Trey Alexander, who joined the Utah Jazz.
That means the core remains built around Zion Williamson, Dejounte Murray, Jordan Poole, Trey Murphy III, Herb Jones, Yves Missi, Derik Queen, Jeremiah Fears, Jordan Hawkins, Karlo Matković, and a deep supporting cast. Dumars clearly believes that group didn’t need a teardown. It needed a better structure.
Mosley arrives with a reputation that fits the assignment. In Orlando, he helped turn the Magic into one of the league’s better defensive teams while also guiding the development of Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner.
That matters here, because the Pelicans’ issues last season weren’t about a lack of names on the roster. They were about the same problems showing up over and over again: transition defense, points allowed in the paint, fourth-quarter offense, isolation-heavy possessions, uneven development, injuries, and a locker room that never seemed fully settled.
Mosley’s job is to attack those issues head-on.
His defensive approach leans on pressure at the point of attack, disciplined rotations, and accountability. On offense, the goal is to move away from static isolation sets and toward more movement, read-and-react action, and better spacing. That kind of setup should help Zion Williamson get downhill more often and give Dejounte Murray a cleaner lane to run the offense without constantly being forced into late-clock trouble.
The biggest beneficiaries may be the younger players. Jeremiah Fears, Derik Queen, Jaron Pierre Jr., Hunter Dickinson, Micah Peavy, Karlo Matković, and Bryce McGowens are all stepping into an environment that’s now built around development.
Shammgod’s presence only sharpens that focus. He’s long been regarded as one of the game’s top skill-development minds, especially when it comes to ball-handling, decision-making, and offensive creativity for guards.
There are already signs of that shift in Summer League, where New Orleans has played with more pace, better ball movement, and sharper defensive intensity.
And that’s where the pressure lands now. A year ago, the question was whether the roster was good enough. This offseason answered that question by choosing continuity on the court and change everywhere else.
If the Pelicans take a real step forward, Dumars’ bet on coaching and infrastructure will look smart. If they stumble again, the conversation won’t stop at the sideline for long. It will move right back to the roster.
For now, though, New Orleans has made its choice. The franchise didn’t rip the team apart. It rebuilt the environment around it.
In Other News...
Pelicans Summer League Is Reviving A Frustrating Problem In The Paint
The Pelicans have opened summer league at 2-1, and there have been enough encouraging signs from a few young players to make the first week feel worthwhile. But the bigger takeaway has been harder to ignore: the same old issue in the paint is still hanging around, with Hunter Dickinson getting a meaningful run without really separating himself as the answer New Orleans wants inside.
That matters because the frontcourt picture for the coming season still looks unsettled, with Dickinson, Yves Missi, Karlo Matkovic and DeAndre Jordan all in the mix. Even with bodies available, the Pelicans have not done much to quiet the concern that their center spot remains a problem they have been trying to solve for a while, and summer league has only sharpened the question of whether this group is any closer to fixing it. [Read more 🡒]