New Orleans Makes BOLD Statement with Herb Jones Deal | Is Zion Williamson Part of Core?

New Orleans Makes BOLD Statement with Herb Jones Deal | Is Zion Williamson Part of Core?

Herb Jones has signed an extension with the Pelicans. We get to celebrate because that makes him part of the core going forward. But can the same be said for Zion Williamson? We’ll break down the extension, the future of the core of this team, and look at head coach Willie Green in today’s episode of Locked On Pelicans. Let’s go. You are Locked On Pelicans, your daily New Orleans Pelicans podcast, part of the Locked On Network. Your team every day. Welcome to another edition of Locked On Pelicans, the daily podcast covering your favorite team, the New Orleans Pelicans and NBA. Part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day, available wherever you get your podcast and available on YouTube. I’m your host, Pelicans Insider, credential member of the media, JakeMadison, Nola Jake on Twitter. Here with y’all on this Tuesday and we finally get to talk about something other than summer league for a minute. We’ll get back to those games tomorrow and then the next day. But I want to look at the Herb Jones extension, why the Pelicans did it now, why Herb Jones did it now, and what it means for the team going forward with their court. There’s also something about the rumors coming out around this team that I find interesting in this discussion as well. Then we’re going to look at head coach Willie Green, assistant coach James Burggo in the final part of today’s episode of Locked on Pelicans. We got a we got a lot to cover in this show here. Today’s episode of Locked On Pelicans is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers can get $150 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. And of course, thank you for making Lockown Pelicans your first listen today and every day. We’re here Monday through Friday, the number one Pelicans podcast covering everything you want to know about this Pelicans team. So, please subscribe wherever you get your podcast and join over 11,000 Pelicans fans on YouTube as well and become an everyday. That means you listen Monday through Friday to the Locked On Pelicans podcast. And if you’re an everydayer, let me know in the comments down below. So, let’s get into the Herb Jones extension news. He’s got two years left on his deal, but just signed a threeyear extension with the New Orleans Pelicans. adding on to those two years. So, it’s a five-year deal total now is what he has here for $68 million. So, he’s got a total of five years and about $97 million left with the Pelicans. The final year of this is a player option. It’s essentially four years here. Look, this is tremendous work by the Pelicans in the front office here that’s been a little bit maligned over this off season, but resigning Herb Jones to just a very teamfriendly deal in my opinion is really great. The way it works with some of these extensions is players can sign up for up to 140% so a 40% raise essentially of their you know current salary. Herb Jones could earn more than that in theory on the open market. We’ll get to that point in a second here. and he decided to forego that just lock in the extension now with a player option there you know and when you look at how this deal is done with kind of how cheap it is he’s going to come in between 12 and 13% of the salary cap going forward which for a player of his ability is a really good value when you see that you go that’s that seems below you know what this basically does is give him a year to get out of it early and then get another or andor bigger payday then he could have waited till the end of these two years hit unrestricted free agency and likely gotten more money than what the Pelicans offered him, the max that the Pelicans could offer him. They could not offer him more than what they offered him here. Let’s keep that in mind. And you know, when you look at how free agency has played out, there was one team with significant cap space this off season. Everyone else was basically resigning with their own teams or traded well before it. You weren’t you you still haven’t seen anything happen with Jonathan Kaminga here, right? So because of that, I think Herb Jones looked at the landscape. And if you’re an everydayer of the show, you’ve heard me say this for a while. You don’t earn big money in free agency anymore. You get traded, then you sign a new contract andor an extension with your current team. That’s kind of how players, bigname players tend to get moved. Now, there’s an outlier here and there, Paul George a year ago, but in general, that’s how it works right now. It’s the ex, you know, it’s the trade and then extend era. Herb Jones hitting the open market. Yeah, he could get more money than this, but would there actually be that kind of salary cap space around? And the answer to that is no. And you see some of the players kind of getting squeezed this off season. Smart to just lock that in right now. He could have waited an extra year and then still done it. Would have been a little bit more money, but why risk the potential injury after playing very few games last year? You’ve seen, you know, up and down when it comes to his three-point shooting. This is just a smart deal, I think, on his part, especially with the player option there. And I think it’s smart by the team. And I do think this makes Herb Jones a core part of the team going forward. This is someone who gives you all NBA level defense or all first team, all defensive team, first team, whatever it is. You get what I’m saying? Um, level defense is a great role player. Just does all the right things, leads by example, wants to be in New Orleans. We love Herb Jones. I bought a new Herb Jones jersey last year for the City Edition jerseys because I like him so much as a player. We want Herb Jones to be here as long as possible. So, I absolutely love this deal. I’m happy Herb Jones continues to get paid at an average value of around 22 and a half$23 million. Great piece of business from all sides. And when you look around the league, everyone looks at this and like that’s all he got. That’s the most he could get. It’s literally the maximum he could get. Again, he could have waited, but I think it was probably smart for him to lock this in. Now, everybody kind of wins here. What I also find interesting about this, and we’ll get to the the rest of the core guys on the team, because I think Herb Jones is a core guy on this team, whether he’s starting or coming off the bench, we love what Herb Jones brings to the team. The defense is just so fun to watch. That dude just blocks three-point shots like Array. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an NBA player do. The everydayers know me know that I say this a lot. It’s really tough to block three-point shots. If you don’t have open space to shoot them, guys tend to not shoot them and will either pass or put the ball on the court and attack, close out, and drive. You don’t shoot contested threes for the most part. Yet, Herb Jones is regularly blocking threes and contesting them. It’s It’s truly incredible what he does on the defensive side of the ball. And just being a second round pick, a guy that they have developed, identified, and grew into what he is now. Just super cool to see. You know, t everyone around the league wants Herb Jones. You’ve seen every trade with the Pelicans involves Herb Jones. Any of the Jonathan Kamingo rumors to New Orleans involved Herb Jones in a trade, right? Here’s the thing with that. They were never shopping him. One of the things that you’ve definitely noticed under the Joe Dumar’s era here is nothing nothing has leaked from the Pelicans for the most part. Derek Queen interest was kind of telegraphed a little bit, but for the most part, nothing, you know, where they control the majority of the information has leaked at all from this team. You didn’t hear anything about a CJ McCullum trade. You heard nothing about interest in Jordan Pool, right? None of that was a thing at all. And it kind of hit us kind of out of nowhere in a sense, right? They’re keeping a tight lid on things. You don’t dangle Herb Jones in trade talks with the Golden State Warriors or other teams and all that stuff and then just to then just turn around and give him this sort of extension. You don’t do that, right? He can’t be traded for 6 months, I believe. Now, I could be wrong on that, but I believe that’s the rule. So, it’s not like you’re looking to move him and now he can’t be moved with that sort of thing. So, when that’s coming into play here, all these leaks and things and rumors you’re hearing about the Pelicans, blah blah blah, none of that seems to be coming from the team. And most of all of that is just wishful thinking on others or other people just kind of making stuff up that I do think is noteworthy in all of this. The Pelicans for the most part have been very quiet about the things that they are trying to do which I kind of like. Makes my job a little bit harder but leads to more surprises and things like that. Things will come out. I’m not worried about that in the future. But look, they weren’t putting Herb Jones in trade talks or anything like that. You might gauge the interest of other teams. If someone calls like, “We’d like to trade for Herb Jones.” you’re going to listen. It’s just doing your due diligence on things or at least just getting an idea of what his value is. That can help you in contract negotiations to resign him and things like that. But for the most part, look, he wasn’t involved in any sort of thing. I think that means the Kaminga rumors to New Orleans were massively, massively overrated in my opinion. And I don’t think there was anything on the Pelican side when it comes to all that. And anyone telling you otherwise, not that knowledgeable here. So that’s kind of where things stand with Herb Jones. Part of the core, no leaks. love the contract. Really great to see him get paid. If you’re happy with it, let me know in the comments down below. So, Herb Jones is part of the core. Who else is part of the core going forward? Let’s discuss that. And really, the baiting question is, is Zion Williamson part of the core going forward? I’m going to share some insight coming up here next in today’s episode of Locked On Pelicans. Today’s episode of Locked On Pelicans is brought to you by FanDuel, America’s number one sports book. Summer sports are in full swing. 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I guarantee you that. and Doug, Matt, and Hayes are gonna keep you updated on all of the rumors and everything you need to be the most informed NBA fan. Find Lockdown NBA on YouTube or wherever you listen to your podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. So, Herb Jones is part of the core. Trey Murphy just signed an extension last year. He’s part of the core. You would imagine Jeremiah Fears and Derek Queen are also part of the core. That seems kind of safe, right? Jordan Pool, maybe, maybe not. I’m not willing to put him into the core group just yet, I think. But could be, could be not kind of thing. You know, when you look at this team, that’s kind of the main guys. It’s Trey Murphy, Herb Jones, Fierce, and Queen. And maybe not anyone else. Maybe Mi is in there, too, but I think they would ideally like to upgrade that position just slightly, but I’ll put Mi in there. So, you have five core guys going forward. Is Zion Williamson in that mix? So, one, do you do you disagree with any of those players? Right. Fears and Queen clearly are core guys. Herb signing an extension, I think, says core guy. Trey Murphy with his great contract in the leap we’re expecting him to take. We’ll talk more about him in the near future. He’s part of the core. Mei was a promising rookie last year, he’s probably part of the core, but everybody else, right, P maybe he’s been in the league for six years. Is he part of the core? Is he not? We’ll see. DeJonte Murray feels like a no right now, but that’s also because he’s injured, so it’s tough to kind of evaluate him. You know, Jordan Hawkins was in and out of the rotation last year injured. I don’t know. I don’t know if he’s shown enough to really be considered part of the core. Could grow into that kind of role, but they’ve really kind of been aggressively kind of changing this roster because I think they don’t particularly like it, which says something about the level of these players and and what we’re seeing from them. So, if that’s going to be the case, is Zion part of the core? And I’m not sure the answer is yes. I’m not sure the answer is no either. I do think that if there was a great offer on the table for him, they would have traded him by now. And from talking to people around the league, that’s kind of the prevailing feeling. He just doesn’t seem to have massive value around the league right now. And while he can be such a transcendent player and I have long said I will go down with the Zion Williamson ship and you just kind of saw David Griffin go down with the Zion Williamson ship trying to make it work around him. You know at this point in his career six, seven years like it just hasn’t come together and worked. And I still think there are big questions about the offc court stuff, the maturity, the mentality, the mindset like taking care of his body. All of that stuff just has not come together for a guy to have the longevity that you want to lead this team to. I’ll use David Griffin’s terms, sustainable success, particularly in a small market. That’s why, you know, look, in our mock draft, I traded him. All of that stuff. I think the Pelicans kind of getting a fresh start seems to be a good thing. That makes you a worse team. It absolutely makes you a worse team because if you’re going to make the playoffs next year, it’s going to be behind Zion Williamson. And as I said in a show a week or two ago, you haven’t really been able to see the future without Zion, beyond Zion. You know, I’ve said it begins and ends with Zion. I I don’t feel quite the same way about that anymore. And I do think a big chunk of this year, and this comes from talking to people around the league, less so with people with the Pelicans, so this is a bit of an educated guess, is that they’re looking to rehab Zion’s value and then either move him at the trade deadline or next off season. That’s as of right now. Look, if he comes out and plays 82 games and looks awesome and shows up in shape and all of those things, you know, that might be one of those things where you’re like, well, we we can’t let him go. We’re not going to look to trade him anymore. Even though you kind of go in hoping, not hoping, but with that being the general plan for the team now, if he does all that, it it kind of changes the way you look at this. It changes the equation, and you’re looking at something completely different. But let’s say he plays 60 games. the team’s relatively like good enough to be call them the they get into the playoffs through the playing tournament as the eighth seed right you know Zion plays 60 70 games that’s a high-end realistic option for him I think you know if that works you know you still feel like is this team going to take a leap the next year and you’re still not in great salary cap situations so I think that’s when you look to maybe move on from him to kind of fix your books and make it so that you know you’ve got some more breathing breathing room to the luxury tax cuz that’s not where the team is right now and kind of build going forward and then you get a better return. You can maybe pick you up a very good pick in next year’s draft to make up for not having one and all of that. You know, even if Zion plays really well and you miss the playoffs, that’s a way to maybe get a lottery pick and kind of make not make up but do it in addition to your kind of younger core here now of Jeremiah Fears, Derek Queen, Trey, and Herb. And look, I say younger core, it’s not like Zion’s old, right? Zion Williamson, you know, despite being in the league for as long as he’s been, is only 20. He’s he just turned 25 a couple like last week, right? Dude’s young still. He’s He’s just entering his prime. But I think they’re starting to think of life after Zion in a way that they just haven’t done it before. and having to summer league might say otherwise but promising rookies in Jeremiah Fears and Derek Queen along with other core guys locked in like Herb Jones and Trey Murphy who look you know might have the opportunity to show he’s the best player on the team going forward and you know we’ll see what P gives you but Pool is going to give you 20 plus points per game. I think you look at that and you go, okay, we can maybe be competitive without Zion if the younger guys take another leap, right? If Dejonte Murray then comes back healthy and we keep him and we move Zion for some more role players, some more depth and maybe a pick and add another young guy to this group. So to answer the question of is Zion part of the core and I want to hear what you have to say in the comments down below. I would say as of right now he is not. He will be a part of the core team next year. If they’re going to be good it next year, it’s probably gonna be because of Zion Williamson. But beyond that, I’m not entirely sure that he is. I think they would potentially like to make a move. There’s just no value to be had in trading him right now. And they’re not going to trade him for pennies on the dollar. You know, you could wave and cut him should you need to in some capacity. you know, if he misses a ton of games this season, which gives them a couple of outs with that and that kind of stuff. So, I don’t see him being part of the core in the same way that I do Jeremiah Fears, Derek Queen, Herb Jones, Trey Murphy. He’s kind of in that next tier where I’d put him, Mei, and some others where it’s like, well, it depends. And Zion, look, Zion’s whole career has kind of been it depends. Depends if he’s healthy. Depends if he’s doing the right things. He does. I think he can get back into being part of the core. and that’s what next season’s going to be a lot about. But I think there will be a lot of noise, let’s call it, around him when it comes to the trade deadline. So, coming up next, I want to talk about head coach Willie Green and James Berago because I find that kind of interesting now that Bergo is not going to the New York Knicks. That’s coming up here next in today’s episode of Locked On Pelicans. Today’s episode of Locked on Pelicans brought to you by Hungry Root. Let’s be honest, meal planning and grocery shopping can be overwhelming. So, between busy schedules, picky eaters, trying to eat healthy, it’s a lot. That’s why I love Hungry Root. They take the stress out of planning by filling your cart with your personalized groceries and meal options based on what you like and need. So, Hungry Root uses their smart cart trademarked technology to recommend groceries, recipes, and even supplements tailored to your preferences. So, whether you’re dairyf free, gluten-free, high protein, whatever it is, Hungry has you covered. I don’t love going to the grocery store. You get in there and it’s like, what do I buy? It just, you kind of end up wasting time there, stressing out over what’s for dinner. But Hungar figures it out for me and it takes the stress out of all of that. It just takes it, pun intended, off of my plate. So, take advantage, get that kind of bonus there. Take advantage of this exclusive offer. For a limited time, get 40% off your first box, plus a free item in every box for life. Go to hungry.com/locktonba and use code locked on NBA. That’s hungry.com/lockdonba. Code lockdown NBA to get 40% off your first box and a free item of your choice for life. And thank you for making Lockdown Pelicans your first listen today and every day. We’re here Monday through Friday, the number one Pelicans podcast covering everything you want to know about this Pelicans team. So please subscribe wherever you get your podcast and join over 11,000 Pelicans fans on YouTube as well. And become an everydayer. means you listen Monday through Friday to the Locked On Pelicans podcast. And for your second listen, it’s Locked On Saints with host Ross Jackson. They’re about to get really into it. When it comes to training camp, we’re hearing about some workouts with Spencer Rattler, Olive, and others. I love hearing all that. I want that team to be good. Ross Jackson’s covering everything black and gold with the New Orleans Saints over at the Lockdown Saints podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. Your team every day. So, I find the decision to not let James Bergo go to the New York Knicks or even interview with the New York Knicks for the lead assistant job. They interviewed him for their head coaching position. He’s clearly looking to be a head coach again. I mean, who wouldn’t be? And there’s interest in him. There was interest in him last summer. There was interest in him this year as well. You know, earlier earlier, there we go. In the offseason, you had the Denver Nuggets interested in adding James Bergo to David Adelman’s staff as the lead assistant, and the Pelicans said no. Same thing for the New York Knicks here. They will not let him move for a lateral position. Why is that? Why is that? Right now, you might think, you know, the what they’re going to put out and what I’ve heard is we value him. We think he’s a really smart offensive mind. We want to keep him here. This team needs a really smart offensive mind to kind of make sense of all of the pieces that they have and build a coherent offense, but they’ve had him for the past couple of years and you haven’t really seen that happen. Now, part of that’s players. Look, Brandon Ingram didn’t want to play James Bergo’s offense. That was a big part of it and it’s what led to, you know, the trade and not looking to sign him to an extension or anything like that and just looking to move on from Brain Ingram. That was a big part of it. It was Ingram was not interested in doing what the team was asking. Whether that’s good or bad, right? Like I’m not going to debate that right now. And I’m not casting judgment on it either way. That’s for you Brandon Ingram fans. I mean that. You know, we’ve also heard reports that maybe Willie Green has kind of diminished James Burggo’s voice a little bit too. And that’s not to say there’s a rift between the two or anything like that because I don’t think there is. That’s just okay. Like why why keep the guy? Do I stop him from getting another job that potentially pays him more money if that’s something that he wants to do? He wasn’t like, don’t I’m not interested in the first place, so don’t even bother reaching out. Right? The Pelicans are clearly keeping him here for a reason. Is part of that reason to be insurance for head coach Willie Green should they decide to move on. And look, there’s no way to read this without thinking that’s some of it. It might not be the overriding factor. They might have a lot of faith in Willie Green, but if you had faith in head coach Willie Green, you’d give him an extension. And that would be the incorrect thing to do. Look, I don’t think Willie Green is a top 10 head coach in the league. I don’t think he’s necessarily a bottom 10 head coach. He’s probably somewhere in the middle here. But is he someone that’s elevating the team after his first year? And I’m not sure the answer to that is necessarily yes. This is someone who needs to grow this year, too. And he would say the same thing. That’s not criticism. It’s just a fact, right? This is going to be the year where there’s a lot of pressure on Willie Green to figure things out. He’s going to need to straddle the line of development while also trying to win now and make the playoffs. That’s a really tough challenge for any sort of head coach. But Willie Green’s going to need to kind of, you know, walk that very thin line when it comes to it this year. You know, if you believed in him, you’d give him an extension because I have said the everyday have heard me say this for years. You’ve seen it with Mike Brown and other coaches. You don’t want to go into the final year with a coach, you know, that’s basically an expiring contract. If they make the playoffs, you’re going to have to pay him even more. Then all of a sudden, it’s a playoff making head coach on the open market. And teams will pay for those kind of guys. Coaching salaries are high. Look, the Pelicans admittedly are being kind of cheap when it comes to the head coach. They operate that way. So, if you let Willie Green make the playoffs, and look, they don’t have a draft pick next year, so that’s what they’re trying to do. If he makes the playoffs, you’ve got to pay him more than you’d pay if you signed him to an extension today. For a team that doesn’t want to pay a head coach like the 10 the 8 to10 million that head coaches are making, that’s a little bit of a risk because there’s probably another team that would if he makes the postseason. So, you don’t want to put yourself in that position. Then we’re, you know, your two scenarios are you you pay a bunch of money to keep a green that you don’t want to do, which like it’s not my money. They should do that if he’s a good head coach, right? or you let your playoff making head coach walk for nothing and that looks really really bad. What does that say? That’s not an ideal situation. So what you end up doing here is you fire the coach in the middle of the season or before. Like that’s how this goes. Or you have a long proact, you know, protracted negotiation for an extension like you saw with Mike Brown with the Sacramento Kings before they fired him. You saw Roma do this, right? It goes go European soccer with Jose Mourinho, right? Didn’t they fire him in the middle of the season or something like that? And it’s like, well, we were going to win a bunch of games. we’re going to have to pay him more and we didn’t want to do that. So, we just decided to preemptively fire him and not go through that process. That’s what happens here. You see that with head coaches. It’s a whole lot easier to fire a guy mid-season if you’ve got, you know, a backup waiting in the wings if you have someone with the experience to just step in. And it’s not like, cool, we’re going to fire him, we’re going to tank and be bad because again, what good does that do New Orleans next year? you fire him and you need someone to take over and try and lead you to wins and that’s what James Burggo can try and do. There’s a reason they’re not letting him go. Part of it is look, they want him to build the offense and do all that. That’s not, you know, I’m not just trying to diminish him here and say the only reason he’s here is for this reason for, you know, to eventually replace head coach Willie Green. And maybe Willie Green comes out, coach is incredible, and you’ve got to pay him. And that be great. We want this team to win if Willie Green shows the growth. But Willie Green’s gonna, I would imagine, be on a very short leash to start next season and is under a tremendous amount of pressure and is frankly my position. If I were him, I’d like I’d hate the position I’m in. This isn’t ideal. You know, you got to develop these young guys, but you’ve got to make the playoffs. We’re going to we’re seeing that Jeremiah Fears and Queen might not be, you know, NBA ready immediately or like heavy rotation minutes ready, but we’ll see. But them not letting James Burggo interview for these other lead assistant jobs or you know whatever and just shooting that down says one about how they view Barago but also probably plans for the future a little bit too. There’s a lot in flux with this team as you have seen this off seasonason and Joe Dumar is ready to kind of remake everything and that’ll eventually come to the coaching staff too. Not just the roster it’ll go to the coaching staff the you know we’ve seen some big changes in the front office and the rest of the staff around the team too. So, the coaching staff won’t be, you know, separate separated from all of that. We’ll see what ends up happening, but it’ll likely be during the season. So, that’s going to do it for this episode of Locked On Pelicans. As always, I’m your I’m your head coach. I’m your host, Jake Madison. Nola Jake on Twitter. We are part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Summer League tonight, we got two more games coming up back toback. We’ll recap all of them and the how the rookies are playing. And I’ll see y’all next time.

New Orleans Pelicans make waves with Herb Jones’ contract extension.

Jake Madison breaks down the Pelicans’ recent moves, focusing on Jones’ team-friendly deal and its impact on the core roster. The discussion covers Zion Williamson’s uncertain future, Willie Green’s coaching challenges, and James Borrego’s role. Madison offers insider perspectives on potential trades, player development, and the pressure to balance growth with playoff aspirations.

Tune in for expert analysis on how these decisions could reshape the Pelicans’ trajectory in the upcoming NBA season.

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FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)