The New Orleans Pelicans recently lost their G League affiliate head coach, T.J. Saint, who left the Birmingham Squadron to join the New York Knicks as part of new head coach Mike Browns staff.
The Pelicans are entering next year with three rookies on standard NBA contracts in Jeremiah Fears, Derik Queen, and Micah Peavy, and one rookie on a two-way deal in Hunter Dickinson. Making it extremely important to bring someone in who can help guide these young players, if they end up spending time in the G League.
And I think the front office may have just found the perfect guy to help the Pelicans' young G League talent develop and win games. Mike Scotto of HoopsHype reported that the Pelicans are promoting Joe Barrer from assistant to head coach of the Squadron.
Barrer has worked in the G League for many years, starting as a video coordinator for the Iowa Wolves. Since then, he has worked. He was up and around the G League, spending four seasons as an assistant for the Lakeland Magic from 2017-21 before being named head coach from 2021-23.
He joined the Pelicans in 2023 under Saint and was an assistant for two years prior to this promotion.
What is Barrer's history with player development like?
During Barrer's time as the head coach of the Magic's G League affiliate, he didn't have a ton of developmental projects. However, the couple he did have turned out to be successful.
The most notable one to me is Caleb Houstan, who spent 12 games in the G League during the 2022-23 season. During his time there, Barrer focused with Houstan on getting his confidence back, trusting himself as a shooter, and getting him to have faith in his own ability again.
Since high school, Houstan was a lights-out threat from deep, but once he arrived in the NBA, the nerves started to kick in. During his rookie year in the NBA, he shot sub 34% from three, which was disappointing for the sharpshooter and rocked his confidence.
So the Magic sent him down to the G League to get his confidence back, and Barrer was instrumental in that. In the next two years of his career, Houstan has shot 37% and 40% from three.
Outside of Houstoan, his only other notable work came with Kevon Harris, who was an undrafted, undersized, scrappy wing that Barrer helped develop. Harris spent some time with Magic but is now with the Houston Rockets on a two-way deal.
Even though there's not a ton of proof that Barrer is some developmental wizard, for him to stick in the G League for almost 10 years now means he's doing something right. Even though losing T.J. Saint stings, Barrer was his right-hand man and was side by side with Saint in developing Karlo Matkovic, Brandon Boston, and Antonio Reeves over the past couple of seasons.