The New Orleans Pelicans have been extremely active all offseason. They kicked it off by overhauling their front office, replacing David Griffin with their new president of basketball operations, Joe Dumars. Since he took the helm, Dumars has been busy crystallizing his vision for the team.
Not only has he revamped things behind the scenes, but Dumars hasn't been shy about making personnel changes on the court either. He's already made several trades in the first couple of months of his tenure, dealing away CJ McCollum and Kelly Olynyk in exchange for Jordan Poole and making multiple deals revolving around the 2025 NBA Draft.
After the first round, New Orleans has come away with point guard Jeremiah Fears out of Oklahoma and Derik Queen out of Maryland. Dumars has shown an encouraging aggression since taking over, and his actions have given a clear indication that he plans for his Pelicans to be competitive sooner rather than later, considering he dealt away an unprotected first-rounder in 2026 in order to move up to grab Queen. Joe Dumars may have injected plenty of life into the Pelicans' roster already, but he might need to add another coach to the bench soon, too.
Pelicans' assistant coach James Borrego to interview with the New York Knicks
According to ESPN's Shams Charania, the New York Knicks plan to interview James Borrego for their head coaching vacancy. He'll be throwing his hat into the ring to replace Tom Thibodeau, who was fired following their seven-game series loss to the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals.
Since then, they've requested to interview multiple active head coaches for other NBA teams, including the Dallas Mavericks' Jason Kidd and the Chicago Bulls' Billy Donovan, and were promptly denied. Borrego now joins their new shortlist of actually available candidates, along with former coaches Mike Brown and Taylor Jenkins and fellow assistant Micah Nori of the Minnesota Timberwolves.
If Borrego does end up landing the Knicks job, Dumars could find himself hard-pressed to replace his presence on Willie Green's bench. Borrego has long been one of the most capable assistants in the entire league. His first head coaching stint saw him take the Charlotte Hornets to the Play-In Tournament twice and finish with a relatively impressive 138-163 record, considering the talent and situation he had to work with.
He was initially brought in ahead of the 2023-24 NBA season to breathe new life into a Pelicans' offense that had recently seen some pretty dark times under former head coaches Stan Van Gundy and Alvin Gentry. During his time in Charlotte, he orchestrated the 12th-best offensive rating in 2018-19 and the ninth-most efficient attack in 2021-22. New Orleans went from 21st in offensive rating to 11th in his first year on the sidelines.