One of the coolest parts of the NBA’s schedule release is looking at the dates of big-time returns. Last season for the New Orleans Pelicans, the focus was all on Brandon Ingram and CJ McCollum’s returns to the Big Easy—this season the big story is Kevon Looney? I’ve written about how the Pelicans' lack of moves following a 26-win season is concerning, and that even something as normal as a schedule release is another reason why.
Typically, when a team wins 47 total games over two years, they head into the offseason, and the front office looks to shake things up. That is unless the people leading your franchise are Joe Dumars and Troy Weaver. Instead, the Pelicans front office opted to make changes to the staff rather than to the roster that has achieved anything.
I’ll be the first to say a coaching change was needed, and I truly believe Jamahl Mosley will be a nice upgrade from what the Pelicans had at head coach with Willie Green and James Borrego. However, when you win 21 and 26 games, coaching isn’t the only issue, and planting your flag in the ground that it is sets some potentially unrealistic expectations for this group.
It's time for Dumars and Weaver to produce results
Entering the 2026 offseason, no one was expecting the Pelicans to move on from Zion Williamson, given he had a healthy and consistent season. On top of that, since arriving in New Orleans, Dumars has backed his star. But even if trading Zion wasn’t in the plans, what about Herb Jones, Saddiq Bey, or even Trey Murphy III? The front office didn’t feel the need to shake up the wing position, even though the team hasn’t won anything with that group? No, and the same goes for a center rotation of Yves Missi and Karlo Matkovic, which received no help.
Instead of writing about the Trey Murphy III return game or the Herb Jones return game, the only storylines are Looney's return on December 31, 2026, and Mosley’s return to Orlando on February 2, 2027. Looney played in 26 games last season for New Orleans and was never a really consistent piece in their rotation, and Mosley’s return is more of a storyline for the Magic than the Pelicans.
Think about how insane that is. After the two years fans have gone through, those are the two biggest changes that the front office made this summer.
Every team in the league that missed the play-in tournament, aside from the Indiana Pacers, has a key storyline or return coming next season because they all remodeled their roster in some way. Not the Pelicans, though. Rather, they returned 14 of 15 players from last year's team and still have the same spacing and frontcourt flaws they had entering last season.
It’s put-up-or-shut-up time for Dumars and Weaver because they have put this team in a position where fans are expecting nothing short of winning, competitive basketball. And if that’s not achieved, they may be on track for the shortest front-office tenure in team history.
Add us as a preferred source on Google