BREAKING: New Orleans Pelicans FIRE Head Coach Willie Green | James Skrmetta Reacts

BREAKING: New Orleans Pelicans FIRE Head Coach Willie Green | James Skrmetta Reacts

Breaking news, ladies and gentlemen. The New Orleans Pelicans have fired head coach Willie Green. Okay, it happened. It’s been going to happen for a while now. I think we all knew this was coming down at any minute and it finally happened uh Saturday morning after the Pels lost on Friday night at home against the Lakers. They, you know, we we actually talked about this uh in our video on Friday, the Gail Benson video, because Gail was asked about Willie Green, and she said that, you know, Joe Dumar is assessing everything, and it’s not really her job to assess basketball operations or whatever. And we talked about, well, he’s probably just finding a spot to fire Willie. I mean, they play Friday, then they play Sunday, and then I believe they play Monday. All right. So, I figured they were going to wait till after that little stretch, then fire him, whatever. But here we go. So, they fired him. Look, Willie Willie did what you can’t do as a coach. All right. He lost the locker room, lost the players, lost the media, lost the fan base, literally lost everything. Very similar, actually worse, though, than the Dennis Allen firing. Dennis Allen, what eventually did him in was that he lost the locker room and he created division and he created animosity within with his own players. And that’s what happened with William. We we kept hearing reports that the players were frustrated. I think the players were expecting this and and waiting for this, which then bred this kind of like the players just didn’t care. They they they were kind of I remember whenever I was uh this is a a wild metaphor, but I remember when I was a newspaper reporter, we got a new like technology uh software, not technology, a new software to how we would write our articles. And I knew I was quitting. I knew I was getting another job. And so I didn’t even learn it. I didn’t even learn the software. I was straight up just head in the cloud during every training session because in my mind, I was like, I’m not going to learn this. I know I’m quitting. And I think the players are doing the same thing where they were like, I’m not going to focus on right now as long as Willie Green’s the head coach because I know a new coach is coming in and it showed on the court I think so for everyone except Derek Queen. Willie is also I think a he’s a example of the experiment that did not work in New Orleans. And we talked about this in a video weeks ago with the Pelicans where the Pelicans are kind of caught in the middle. They’re caught in the middle of the previous era which did not work or has not worked which was the Zion, Brandon Ingram, CJ McCullum, like that whole combination, you know, Larry Nash, Naji Marshall, Dyson, like that whole thing which Willie was obviously part of. And now this new era of Dumar’s in control, Derek Queen, Jeremiah Fears, Trey, Herb kind of Miy, you know, kind of a new look, faster, more dynamic, totally different style of play, but that Willie was still there. Zion’s still there, right? And there is not a doubt in my mind that Zion is going to get traded because you have to get that first round pick back. It’s that simple. You can’t make the trade to go get the big easy Derek Queen, not have your first round pick when you potentially could be one of the worst teams in the NBA and be in the lottery. The backup plan, the golden parachute that was always there was, well, we can afford to lose this pick because we can get it back or get a pick back or get back in the lottery or whatever. And it also makes sense if they’re firing Willie and they’re kind of shutting the door on that era and they’re shutting the door on that experiment that the next door to be shut would be Zion, right? It’s a new team. It’s a growing team. It’s a super young team. Very similar to the Saints. I think the Pelicans this year, you take your lumps. You let these guys grow. You let these guys kind of figure it out in real time. You let them play together. Trey and Herb have to take a huge step. They’ve got to be the core guys now. Trey can’t just be a, you know, three-point spot shooter. Uh that that’s the third option on a play. Uh Herb can’t just be a defensive specialist who gives you zero to four points a game. These guys got to be the two best players on the team. And then Queen and Fierce have to grow into their roles. Uh Mei’s got to continue developing. He was fantastic last year. We’ll see what happens when Murray comes back from injury. Never know how that plays out, but he’s got to get back up to speed. He’s got to uh you know, once he gets back to his level, all of a sudden he’s got to be one of the best players on the team, arguably the best player on the team. All right. I would be surprised if they went and tried to go get like Michael Malone. Uh I I think Malone is the most obvious choice for this team. He is a coach who he won, right? Even though he had Joic and whatever, won the finals, understands what a proper organization should look like, understand what a proper team should play like, train like, practice like, whatever. That’s probably what this team needs. this team is so young, so raw, all developing at the same time. Go get a professional coach. Go get a guy who can at least show them this is how a winning team operates. This is how a winning team should should play. Again, I’d be surprised if that happened. It sounds like they’re just going to let Bara step in as the interim coach and see how that goes. We’ll see. You know, we’ll see how it plays out. Fine. But it just it just makes too much sense to me to not go get him and let him start planting the seeds and let him start kind of building. I mean, it’s we’re only 12 games into the year. You know, you give Malone and this group an entire year to build the foundation and then next year bring in a lottery pick if you trade Zion and go get picks and all that stuff. I’m really I’m really putting the car before the horse here. But then all of a sudden you hit the ground running and the Pelicans have a new vision and a new identity. The problem with the Pelicans is that their identity was dated, stale, never worked, wasn’t going to work. The NBA was evolving and the Pelicans weren’t evolving. The Pelicans were every single year saying, “Well, maybe this is the year Zion takes a step. Well, maybe this is the year this works.” And it never worked ever. I mean, it works for a couple of highlight dunks a year. Beyond that, it’s a bunch of injury updates. It’s a bunch of, well, he had 28 points, but the Pels lost by five, you know, dropped another one. That’s all it ever did. That’s it. Pelicans had one year of of splendor uh in this whole era when they took the Suns to six games. Cool, right? I was there in the blender for Chris Paul to go 14 for 14 or whatever it was and break everyone’s hearts. Beyond that, it’s been a complete just let down year in and year out. So, Willie Green, if you look at his coaching record, all right, so this was uh four seasons and then 12 games here in 2025, 2026. He goes 36 and 46 and 42 and 40, 49 and 33, 21 and 61 IA, and then 2 and 10 for a grand total of 150 and 190. So 40 games under 500 for a 441 winning percentage in the playoffs or in the postseason. He goes 2 and8 10 games uh for a 200 uh winning percentage there. So that’s Willie Green. Uh if you look at Zion and if you want to look in those those seasons. So Zion and Willie Zion did not play. Willy’s first year in New Orleans was the 21 2022 year. Zion was out the entire year. Uh that year they go 36 and 46. And then Zion plays 29 games in 2223. They go 42 and 40. 23 and 24. Zion plays 70 games most games of his career. And the Pells go 49 and 33 after that. Total dumpster fire. But, you know, again, the record is not what did Willie in. What did Willie in was L. I mean, they like guys, they weren’t even announcing him at games. Think about how insane that is. They used to announce him. They announced every head coach after they announced the roster, they announced the coach and then whatever. They used to do that with Willie and they decide not to. Like that right there tells you enough when when the when the organization is making the decision to not announce the coach because he is so disliked. Hard to come back from that. Really difficult to come back from that. As far as like exes and no stuff, Willie was poor to say the least coming out of the half. We would routine, we still do it this season, routinely come out of the half and get immediately go on like a two two to 12 run and all of a sudden the game’s over. Horrible at lineup or rotation management at the end of games. He would just ra this year did the same thing like this year all of a sudden he’s playing Looney over Queen. Queen can barely get minutes when he’s the best player on the team. And then when they ask Willie about it, he just has no idea what’s going on, right? I mean, the game I was at, uh, I went to the Spurs game late in that game, Willie Willy’s making very questionable rotations towards the end of the game and then, you know, it goes to hell in overtime. But, so Will Willie, he just never had it from any angle. He never had it from the X’s and O’s angle. He never had it from the locker room angle. And it was absolutely time for him to go and absolutely time to begin to to end this era of the New Orleans Pelicans to kind of end this whole thing. Uh we’ll see what they do from here. Again, I don’t I don’t expect them to to hire anybody right now. Uh, I think we’ll see the interim, but I would love if moving forward, unless this team just goes on an insane run, but I would love if they brought in Malone and gave this team just a professional run in the show to develop this young this young roster. But now all eyes are on Zion. He was clear for basketball activities today or maybe yesterday, but I got to think I got to think that’s the next domino. And if that’s the next domino, the Pelicans have hit rebuild in the biggest way, which again they desperately need to do. It is time to rebuild. It’s time for this Pelicans team to embrace the young guys, to embrace the new era, to embrace the new core, and just move off of of everything that they’ve had for the last five years. So, they started that last year with Ingram and McCullum and Jonas and players like that kind of kind of being, you know, moved. Willy’s now now the final piece is Zion. It’s kind of crazy, but the final piece is Zion. Kind of where it all began. So, all right, ladies and gentlemen, breaking news here on a Saturday morning. Enjoy your day. Thank you for watching and I will see you in the next

BREAKING NEWS: The New Orleans Pelicans have officially fired head coach Willie Green after a disastrous 2-10 start to the season, and James Skrmetta is here with a full reaction, breakdown, and deep-dive into what this means for the Pelicans’ future. In this video, James analyzes why Willie Green was let go, how Zion Williamson’s recurring hamstring injuries impacted the team, and why the Pelicans’ historically bad start forced Joe Dumars and the front office to make a drastic change.

We cover what went wrong, the Pelicans’ bottom-five offensive and defensive rankings, the impact of losing Jordan Poole and Dejounte Murray, the emergence of rookies Derik Queen and Jeremiah Fears, and what interim head coach James Borrego brings to the table.

James Skrmetta also looks at how big offseason moves, the loss of key draft picks, and constant injuries have put New Orleans in a critical position moving forward and whether this firing signals a total franchise reset.

If you’re a Pelicans fan, NBA fan, or New Orleans sports fan, this is your must-watch reaction video. COMMENT your thoughts on whether the Pelicans made the right move firing Willie Green and what’s next for Zion, Borrego, and the franchise.

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