Once upon a time when the New Orleans Pelicans were trending in the right direction, Willie Green delivered a fiery speech in Los Angeles that defined his first season as a head coach.
His Pelicans were buried in a 10-point hole heading into the fourth quarter of a play-in game against the Clippers that night during the 2021-22 season.
“Get your freaking heads up,” Green told his team. “This is what we live for. This is what we work hard for. OK, we ain’t giving it up. We are not freaking giving this up. You gotta freaking fight. You gotta fight.”
The Pels fought back and won that night.
More times than not since then, the fight the Pelicans put on display in that game 3½ years ago has been missing.
You’ll see glimpses from time to time, like in Friday night’s 126-124 loss to the Clippers decided by a Kawhi Leonard buzzer beater. The Pels trailed by 10 going into the fourth quarter Friday. This time, unlike that play-in game in 2022, they couldn’t close the deal.
But most other times — like earlier in the week when the Pelicans got blasted in back-to-back losses to the Boston Celtics and Denver Nuggets — you’ll see a team that has the same amount of fight as it has wins — zero.
In those times when it seems the players have given up on Green, the question becomes is it time for the front office to give up on him, too?
For every game like Friday night when you see the Pels fight to the end, they’ll negate it with an embarrassing reality check. The next one could come as early as Sunday when the Pelicans (0-5) wrap up their road trip against the undefeated Oklahoma City Thunder, the reigning NBA champions.
It’s still early in the season, but Joe Dumars — who replaced David Griffin as executive vice president of basketball operations in April — already could be facing a big decision.
Does he ride it out with Green? Or has he seen a large enough sample size?
Is Dumars discouraged by the two embarrassing losses this week from a team that hasn’t won a game since March 30? Or does the fight he saw Friday in taking the Clippers to the wire offset that?
Outside of Friday’s game, what the Pelicans have shown so far isn’t what Dumars said fans would see when he took over. He didn’t promise a playoff berth this season, but he did promise effort.
“Before you can get to the playoffs or a certain amount of wins, the first thing you have to get to is, ‘We compete hard every night,’ ” Dumars said in April. “If you don’t establish that in your building first, you’re just talking. You’re just giving quotes out at that point. For me, it’s a process of establishing a hard, competitive playing team every night. Then we will get to the wins and losses.”
The competitiveness hasn’t been there consistently and certainly not the wins.
The Pels’ losing streak is at 12 dating to last season. Four of the last seven losses have been by at least 25 points, including the pair of 30-plus point beatdowns this week against the Celtics and Nuggets. A loss to OKC on Sunday would tie the franchise record for most consecutive losses.
When evaluating Green, an asterisk can go beside last season. The Pels tied for the second-fewest wins in team history, but even Phil Jackson couldn’t win with a team decimated by that many injuries. The season before that, Green led the team to 49 wins, the second-most in franchise history.
He hasn’t recaptured what he had in the 2023-24 season. It seems as if Green’s message isn’t getting through to the players at times.
It’s not just that the Pels are losing. It’s how they are losing.
In all five games this season, there have been lulls. That falls on Green. It doesn’t help when the team has games like Wednesday night’s loss to the Nuggets when two of its best players (Trey Murphy and Herb Jones) combine to shoot 3 of 15 from the floor and the best player (Zion Williamson) goes the entire game without a rebound.
After the loss to the Nuggets, Green’s postgame message was that his team needed to do some soul searching.
“Pretty much we are a team right now that has to dig down and find our identity,” Green said. “We have to believe in each other. That’s first. The first order of business is you’ve got to compete harder, play harder, play more together, and the belief has to be there.”
You saw that Friday as they climbed out of a 17-point, third-quarter hole to almost force overtime. But it still goes down as a loss.
“Even through a difficult loss, the response we all saw tonight is a group that is learning each other and coming together,” Green said Friday. “But they care. They went out and competed at a high level and gave everything they got. We are going to continue to get better.”
Will Green get to continue leading that charge?
Dumars gets to decide whether he believes in Green. Many of the fans no longer do.
Social media has been in shambles all week. So have some of the fans in the Smoothie King Center. Boos were heard when Green’s name was called during pre-game introductions at the home opener against the San Antonio Spurs. To avoid the boos, Green’s name wasn’t announced during introductions for the second home game against the Celtics.
Those boos will get only louder. At least until fans stop showing up, typically the next step when teams don’t play with effort.
“We are here to raise the bar,” Dumars said in April. “We’re not here to be happy with mediocrity.”
Five games into the season, the Pelicans aren’t even mediocre. One of three winless teams in the NBA, they are toward the bottom of the league in most statistical categories.
Pelicans governor Gayle Benson typically doesn’t get rid of coaches in the middle of a season. She did last year though, firing Dennis Allen, the head coach of her other franchise the New Orleans Saints.
The Pelicans last got rid of a coach midseason when Byron Scott was let go after the then-New Orleans Hornets started 3-6.
Will Green last that long?
It’s too early to say.
Or is it?
