Pelicans’ CROSSROADS: Gayle Benson’s Stewardship, Arena Needs & Willie Green’s Pressure

Pelicans’ CROSSROADS: Gayle Benson’s Stewardship, Arena Needs & Willie Green’s Pressure

Confidence in ownership, the arena, and the head coach trending up, trending down. Pelicans fans aren’t holding back, and we’re going to talk about it right now 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 in NBA. Part of the Lockdown 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 Thursday and we are tackling some big topics in today’s show. We’re going to look at Gail Benson and the perception of her as the fan base. And I’m going to push back on a few things with that. I also want to get into the arena and the true importance of it. Then we’re going to look at your confidence in head coach Willie Green. We got a lot to cover in today’s episode of Locked On Pelicans. Today’s episode of Locked On Pelicans is brought to you by FanDuel. Football season is around the uh corner and closer than you think. So, right now, new customers can bet just $5 and if your bet wins, you’re going to get $300 in bonus bets. Download the FanDuel app to get started over at fanduel.com. And of course, thank you for making Lockdown Pelicans your first listen today and every day. We are 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. 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. And don’t forget, you can catch Locked On Pelicans on the GF Coast Sports and Entertainment Network every weekday at 10:30 a.m. Channel 7.1 in New Orleans, same place you watch your Pelicans play. So, let’s get into this one. We’re covering the fan survey and reading your responses here. And I want to get into some of the bigger topics, ownership, the arena, and the head coach in Willie Green. Let’s start literally at the top with Gail Benson here. You know, we had I had two questions there that I really think kind of just get to the heart of of what we’re looking at when it comes to ownership and what their role is supposed to be. I am going to push back on one thing in a minute here. The first question with Gail Benson was do you think Gail Benson is a cheap owner? 46 47% said yes, 33% said no and 20% said uncertain. Right? That kind of uncertainty carried over to when I asked fans to rate her stewardship of the team on a scale of 1 to 10. The average score was a 4.8, which you know, if we’re looking at it, is technically a failing grade, but it’s just kind of right in the middle here. And this is where perception really matters, I think. Right? This kind of speaks to a lot about the Pelicans need to change the perception of the team here. You know, even when this franchise does something smart, maybe it’s, you know, extending Herb Jones or not trading away Trey Murphy, you know, it’s going to get filtered through this lens of but is that the cheap option that they’re doing in some capacity, right? You know, when you compare that to some other markets, you know, you look at this of Milwaukee spending deep in the tax to keep Giannis happy and other certain teams, right? You know, it feels like New Orleans is lagging behind and not doing that. And fans notice, right? Like you notice if the team is kind of being cheap. Now, something I want to keep in mind with this is I don’t actually think this is a cheap franchise. This is the part I want to push back on. Could they be doing more? Oh, yes, absolutely. I don’t want you to think this is like a full-on defense of ownership or anything like that, right? If you look at their average salary from when Tom and Gail Benson bought the team, you know, in the time that it’s just been that ownership group, they have finished basically averaging 15th in terms of salary per season. They are not bottoming the roster out trying to keep salary as low as possible. They are willing to spend. They get right to the luxury tax a number of years. There have been a couple of years where they’re like basically right on the line of it and only like a couple hundred,000 below the luxury tax threshold. That to me does not scream cheap, right? Cheap used to be the Los Angeles Clippers under Donald Sterling who wanted to just make a profit that he could use on other things and kept payroll low and kept that team intentionally bad. Though it hasn’t worked out, this team has kind of been going for it for years. They have been spending. They built a new practice facility. They have renovated said practice facility twice now. Really spending money on upgrading their facilities and trying to make it one of the tops. And even when you looked at, and I talked about this last season, the NFL doing a fan survey and they share a lot of the facilities with the Pelicans. The Saints graded out pretty high in terms of that player survey. You know, the thing that was like the biggest knock was like the cafeteria wasn’t good. Well, that’s all been recently renovated and isn’t a problem anymore. For the Saints, the biggest issue was like their head coach and no one liked Dennis Allen. So when I look at this of people basically 50% saying Gail Benson is cheap. Yes. You know that comes down to luxury tax, right? Like that’s truthfully what this is. You know, they they’re one of and I’ve used this before. They’re one of two franchises that has never gone into the luxury tax at all. But look, there’s some misinformation around that. I’m probably a little bit guilty when it comes to that as well with everything because that doesn’t really tell the whole picture of things, right? The Milwaukee Bucks only recently have started going into the luxury tax to build around Giannis, right? You look at a team like Detroit, which is actually a pretty big market. They’ve been in the luxury tax one time while Joe Dumar was there in ‘ 04 and their luxury tax payment was like barely anything. It was point It was seven. It was threequarters of a million dollars. Atlanta, big market, right? They’ve only been in the luxury tax twice. The Houston Rockets, by the way, right? Houston, massive market. They’ve only been in the luxury tax twice. Chicago one, two, twice. They’re cheap team, right? Indiana Pacers were going to go into the luxury tax, but then sheeped out this year after the Tyresese Hallebertton injury. They haven’t been in it since ‘ 04. There’s a number of these teams that you would think should be in the tax regularly just have not been for whatever reason, right? So, when you look at New Orleans, yeah, they’ve never been in there, but they’re only one off from a team like Detroit. They’re only two times off of a team like the Houston Rockets. And I think needing that proper context is important in all of that, right? Houston’s total tax payments ever are $5.63 million. It’s not like it’s a lot here. And so when you look at this franchise under the Benson ownership to today, because the stuff before that doesn’t really matter. It’s not relevant when talking about ownership is, you know, has there been a team that’s worthy of paying the luxury tax for? And you look, you pay it every year if you wanted to. But keep this in mind that only about like six to 10 teams are in the luxury tax in any given year. It’s not like threequarters of the league is or something along those lines. So when when Gail Benson is kind of rated here as a cheap owner, this is more just due to the luxury tax payments and said that hey, you know, when the time is right, go for it. We’ll see if the team actually does that. But truthfully, I don’t know if there’s been a team that it’s like, oh, add the one piece that we know you can get, but they don’t because they’re being cheap. Dumping Kyler Lewis Jr. to get under a tax when you’re a playing tournament team like doesn’t really bother me a ton because then more money is coming into the team that they can hopefully reinvest. You know, you can get a tax payment of something like 15 plus million that’s worth keeping in mind to reinvest into the facility and other things for a year when like you don’t need to pay it. And again, it’s not like every team is doing it. And when you look at some of the smaller market teams, yes, some of them have done it. The Utah Jazz have paid a lot in luxury tax payments. They truthfully have. They’re one of the smaller markets, you know, in the in the league along with New Orleans. In Utah, where is their their total? Because they’ve actually been decent about like going in and paying. They paid 30 million in luxury tax payments. They were last in it two years in a row. What year is that? In 2020 and 2021. You know, there’s reasons to do it if you have a competitive team, but it’s not like the Pelicans are like so cheap and everyone else is doing this thing and other teams aren’t. That I do think is worth keeping in mind. The bigger one to me is the stewardship, right? Like this comes to winning. This is a team that just has not consistently won and at times does seem to feel like a little too stuck in their eras. Should they have pulled the plug on the Zion Williamson era sooner rather than later? They haven’t, right? You know, did they keep David Griffin a little bit too long? You even look at the hire of Joe Dumar. Did they rush that process and truthfully find the best person or did they just go with someone familiar who they felt was safe and it makes it look like a lazy process? Those are all valid things to ask and I think that rating of her stewardship of the team is much more important to look at than the than the cheap stuff because they spent a lot of money on that facility and other things. And hopefully one day that will apply to the roster when someone has built a roster worthwhile. But the 4.8 8 out of 10, right? Right in the middle. Seems about right for the own for ownership here, truthfully. And hopefully they can figure this out soon that that number can rise. If they were winning, that number would be higher. It’s it it all comes down to that, right? Winning. But I do think some context around some of the luxury tax and what their salaries have been is a pretty important thing to look at with this team because we can see, you know, where where the team is in terms of tax right now. Hold on, let me pull it up where they are going into this season. The Pelicans have Where did the number just go? They’re 19th in payroll. They’re 4.2 million from the luxury tax. 12 teams are in the luxury tax right now. Only two of them, I would say, is a small market in Orlando is considered a small market. Milwaukeee’s not even in there right now. So, it’s just really them and that’s kind of it. So, keep that in mind when when judging Gail Benson. Do they need to do more to kind of like truthfully invest in the team? Yes. Right. Like could you have spent more money to really do a search and find you know maybe it was going to be Joe Dumar but do the proper search. The everydayers have heard me kind of rail against the process of hiring him all those things. Yeah. Should they have invested more in the facility in the first place? Yes. But they are doing it now and I do think that is a worthwhile thing to kind of keep in mind that I don’t think this team is like intentionally trying to be cheap. I think circumstances just haven’t really kind of come together for it to be correct. One thing that can help though with money and revenue and not being cheap is an arena. Let’s talk about the arena situation. What you thought about the game day experience, what you feel the importance of getting a new arena and why that matters, really matters for this team. That’s 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. The NFL season is here and FanDuel is making sure you’re ready for kickoff with a can’tmiss offer. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. 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We are 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. We you just did the Pelicans fan survey, but Locked Dawn has a survey for you as well. We’ve put together a survey to learn more about our listeners and make your favorite podcast even better. This is your chance to tell us what you like, what you don’t, answer questions about our advertising. Go to lockedonpodcast.com/servey to get started. And everyone who completes a survey will be entered for a chance to win one of $10 Amazon gift cards. That’s lockedpodcast.com/servey. You can also find the link in the show notes. And look, we appreciate it over at Lockdown. Help us make the shows better for you. So, let’s switch gears to the arena because I I actually think all the stuff that we’re going to talk today is really tied together. It’s really going to kind of crescendo with Willie Green coming up here, right? Ownership and that kind of talk factors into another really big picture topic. The arena here, you know, the one of the questions I put in there was on a scale of 1 to 10, you know, how important is it for the Pelicans to get a new arena or a refurbished Smoothie King Center? So, upgrading the Smoothie King Center in some capacity here, right? this one. You know, the other day we talked about the show, you know, not the show, but things kind of being rated a mid, like, you know, right down the middle in all of this. Uh, this one was not like that. This one was very cut and dry when it comes to your feelings on the arena here. And this one graded out at a seven, a seven out of 10. people felt this is important and that it is very important for the Pelicans to get that new arena. Look, I agree with this. I very much agree with this that you’ve got to do something. I’ll get into the current game day experience in a minute here because I I disagree with that one, but the importance of arena is is look, you guys saying it’s a seven out of 10 is kind of like a clear mandate here, you know? And look, I I get it, right? You walk into the Smoothie King Center, the concourses are a little bit outdated. The food and beverage options just like aren’t great. There’s a lack of premium seating. You know, by NBA standards, this arena is beyond behind the times. They’ve done, you know, the surveys and things like that of it. And like some of the stuff is like critical failures of like they’re just outdated. It’s not going to work. And you know, a new arena is not just about like comfort of going to a game. You know, a modern arena is going to bring in more money. there’s more opportunities for sponsorships, premium seating. It can help attract concerts and events, which just helps the local economy and all of that. You know, that revenue is what allows you to go deep into the luxury tax and still be financially viable in a small market, right? This will a new arena will help the Pelicans generate more money and hopefully then, you know, provide some of the things here um with it all. Like, that’s an important thing to really keep in mind. But here’s the bigger reason for it. this gets lost like when people like I want a new arena. Yeah, you want a new like fancy arena. Look, it’s also there’s some civic pride in that. Like that’s our building. Look at what we have. It’s you feel a sense of ownership over it. I completely understand it. But the bigger thing is the long-term future of the Pelicans in New Orleans. Look, the the team is going to do everything they can. They they’re not Gail Benson is not selling the team. They have no intention of letting this team move away even when she passes given there are no heirs and there is a succession plan in place. That has been made clear in articles published that has been made clear to me behind the scenes as well that this team is not moving whatsoever. But the the biggest way that you can guarantee the team is here no matter what happens in the future is with a long-term lease. Long-term lease. That’s what it is, right? I believe this lease I might have this incorrect. We’ll do a whole other show where I get asked a couple people some more details for it. You know, about through 2029. It’s a couple years from now. You’ve got to figure that out and keep this team here long term. That’s also means there’s time to refurbish and upgrade the Smoothie King Center with all of this, right? You know, but if you build a new arena, you upgrade the Smoothie King Center, the team commits to the city and a lot of the concerns about Gail Benson vanish overnight. You know, I think, you know, this would be a great way to kind of really show that there’s so much national media noise. We talked about it with Bill Simmons a couple weeks ago here. I wouldn’t read a thing into that. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And again, it has been made very clear that this team’s not moving. There’s no intention to sell. But the way you kind of really make fans believe that is with a long-term lease. That’s the most important thing here. I want to go to the current game day experience. This was rated a five and a half out of 10. I I disagree. Like I get it. It’s outdated. You’d like better food and beverage options if you’re looking for that. You know, the parking kind of sucks around it. Like all that stuff does matter and I I completely understand. You know, the sound system is not great. That’s been needing an upgrade for years. But I will say this. If you go to another arena to watch a game and if your goal is to like watch basketball, Smoothie King Center’s great. It’s cheap. I love cheap tickets. You know, a new arena is going to drive ticket prices up significantly. Is that something that you want? Maybe, you know, but I like a cheap arena where I can just go in, grab a beer, and watch the game. I’d like the beer prices to be a little bit cheaper. Certainly, the food to be a little bit better. You know, maybe some healthier options, too, would be really nice. You know, if you’re going to 41 regular season games and eating chicken tenders and fries every single game, you’re not going to physically be feeling too great here. So, you know, but I think if you look at the product on the court, you know, Theo Mitchell, who admittedly is a good friend of mine, so I love what he does as the in arena host, they’re constantly doing like games and promotions on the court. If you go to the Lakers or you go to the Clippers or some of those other places, yeah, the Clippers new arena has some like really crazy fancy things, but most arenas around the NBA are not like doing those things on the court. There’s not baby races and other things constantly. You don’t have the grill toss every single game. It’s usually just like kiss cam or the bongo cam at other NBA arenas and like that’s it. There’s nothing going on on the court. Here, the Pelicans really do a lot, I think, for their game day experience of those type of promotions and other fun things that you don’t get in other places. That does matter to me. I think that, you know, is an important thing to keep in mind. And I think a lot of people are just kind of missing something that perspective if you’re not regularly going to other NBA arenas. And look, if you are, you must have an awesome life and I’m kind of jealous. So, I think that’s something that kind of keeps in mind with it, too. I kind of just like a cheap, no frrills, easy arena. Let me go watch basketball and drink beer because that’s what I’m trying to do and like hang out with my friends. I think they do a good job of that. But look, yeah, you need to upgrade some of the seating. You know, that stuff’s been in there for near 25 years. That’s not great. You do need to kind of work on those sorts of things. So, a refurbishment does need to happen in certain capacity. But do I need a vending machine where I can go buy Jordans? I certainly don’t. I’d spend too much money on that sort of thing. They have that like at the Chase is it Chase with uh the Golden State Warriors? Like is that needed? Nice to have lap. Sure, but probably not needed. And that’s only going to make the price of things go up. Keep that in mind when kind of exper you know thinking about the arena and also who’s going to pay for it and the financing and all that. That’s larger questions for another day here. But certainly they need to kind of do something to kind of elevate the experience and that will go a long way towards kind of changing the perception of the franchise. This is a theme that I really been hammering. So coming up next, we got a little bit of time to talk a little bit more about Willie Green. But I want to kind of talk about pressure on Willie Green, but maybe not in the way that you think. That’s coming up here next in today’s episode of Locked on Pelicans. And thank you for making Locked on Pelicans your first listen today and every day. We are 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. 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 move on to head coach Willie Green. running out of time because this is where the survey numbers do get really interesting. I asked fans to rate their confidence in Willie Green on a scale of 1 to five. The average came back at just 2.1. It’s low. This is year five for Willie Green. There the excuses are basically gone. Look, and he’s had a lot of excuses. Zion is barely played it seems like, right? Health has been a a massive in problem for this team over the years. And so maybe we’ve never really gotten a full chance to evaluate Willie Green, right? You know, but in theory, they’re healthy going into this year and even when the team has been healthy, it has felt like they have underachieved. And so in the glimpses that you’ve seen of Willie Green when this team’s been at full strength, 49 wins two years ago and it felt like they should have won like 55, right? Like they couldn’t close out games, they couldn’t make fourth quarter comebacks. That is a reflection on the head coach here, right? So, fans aren’t sold. But the question of should Willie Green keep his job if the Pelicans make the playoffs? The responses tell you everything, right? 30% said yes, no matter what. More than that, 36.6% said only if they win a first round series. 20% said flatout no, just making the playoffs isn’t enough. Right? It’s a very divided fan base and that reflects what we’ve seen on the court. you know, can Willie Green make the proper in-game adjustments, which seems like it’s been a struggle at times. Can he build an offense that doesn’t grind to a halt when Zion sits? Because you’ve got to kind of factor that in, but even then, then it’s not the best way to use Zion. So, that’s kind of a catch 22 there, right? You know, does he trust some of the young guys enough to play them and develop them? Fans are skeptical. And I and I completely get it. And when you tie this in with everything, right, with with ownership, with the outdated arena and the perception this team is kind of stuck. Look, this is a ton of pressure on Willie Green truthfully, right? The best way to change the narrative around ownership in literally everything is win games. Is win games. Who’s that ultimately kind of falling whose shoulders is that falling? Falls on the head coach, right? A lot of the perceptions around the franchise vanish. vanish if they win truthfully. Just win and all and everyone’s happy, right? Winning cures everything. Losing, the everydayers have heard me say this, longtime listeners have heard me say this, like is a disease that like kind of infects you and get seeps into everything. Seeps into the fan base, too. You got to win. It’s going to be on Willie Green to kind of figure this strange roster out. And maybe, look, maybe that’s not fair to him, but at the end of the day, this is a resultsoriented business. are you winning? That’s what you’re here to do. And the team has not been doing that. And it has felt like they’ve underachieved. I think when you look at Willie Green, like he needs a big season. Big season. And I’ve said I think they could make a could or should make a head coaching change early on in the year if things aren’t going properly or how they want. And that wouldn’t be an incorrect thing to do because there’s a lot writing on this year. Joe Dumar’s heaped even more pressure on it by trading away next year’s lottery pick. Not lottery pick or like first round pick. Maybe it won’t be in the lottery. All that stuff just it’s a ton of a ton of pressure on everyone within this organization. Go back to the first thing about Gail Benson being cheap. I’m curious what you think now that I’ve kind of put a little bit more context around it in terms of the luxury tax that some other teams have been paying. Right. like OKC hasn’t paid it, you know, in in since 2018, 2019, since precoid. They’re they’re a small market. Memphis doesn’t really pay it. You know, the Pelicans are kind of right in line with a lot of franchises. But the way we’ll judge it is if they come out the gates and look incredible incredible this year, right? Like say they they look like a contender, they’re $4.2 $2 million away for the luxury tax. Do they have the go-ahad then to add a $6 million player through trade or something along those lines to upgrade the roster if they look good? If they don’t do that, that’s them dodging the tax. That’s being cheap. When you have a team that’s maybe worth paying it for, they just have it. You know, that kind of speaks to everything around this franchise of like, have they really had a team under the Benson’s ownership? Shin’s a different story. They absolutely did have teams worth paying the luxury tax for, but Shin was cheap and basically insolvent. You know, that’s not the case here. If the opportunity arises, will ownership say yes, pay the tax? You don’t want to pay the tax just to pay the tax. You don’t. You’ve got to, again, there are limitations to a small market. We’re not in Los Angeles. We’re not in Chicago, not in New York, all of that. But the right team, they should pay the tax for should. Will will they? I don’t know. This might not be a question that we get a ton of an, you know, much of an answer to for who knows when, how long. We’ll see. Coming up tomorrow, final day, at least for now, that we’re going to talk about this fan survey here. We’re going to look at Joe Dumar, the front office, the overall direction around the team, and some of the moves that they have made. Let’s get into that one. The Friday episode of Locked On Pelicans. I appreciate y’all so much for listening. As always, I’m your host JakeMadison, Nola Jake on Twitter. This is the Lockdown Pelicans podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. See y’all tomorrow.

Are the New Orleans Pelicans truly committed to winning? Fan perceptions of ownership, arena needs, and coaching performance take center stage in this eye-opening analysis.

Jake Madison breaks down the results of a revealing fan survey, exploring the complex dynamics shaping the Pelicans’ future. From Gayle Benson’s ownership style to the pressing need for arena upgrades and Willie Green’s job security, no stone is left unturned. The discussion tackles the team’s spending habits, game day experience, and the critical importance of on-court success.

Tune in for an insider’s perspective on the challenges and opportunities facing this small-market NBA franchise, and discover why winning might be the ultimate solution to the Pelicans’ image problems.

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