Joe Dumars 2025-26 Preseason Press Conference | New Orleans Pelicans

Thank you guys for being here today. I um just want to open up and say uh it’s been really busy summer. Uh productive summer. Uh a lot of hard work has gone into uh preparing for the season. Um guys have been really good this summer. All the players, coaches, uh and just trying to get everybody uh with one mindset going into the season. Uh and so we feel really good about that. Uh looking actually looking forward to the season. Uh you never really know for sure. Uh how things are going to play out. But um I just feel good about how everyone has kind of come together uh to try to write the ship here and get us heading in the right direction. So uh with that, I’ll uh open it up to questions. Can you give us a guess an injury update on on all the guys? Yeah. Uh, so I can tell you about the guys who are on the court right now. I just walked from over um watching Herb, watching Trey go full speed. Those guys have been um scrimmaging for the last two, three weeks non non-stop. Uh I’ve seen those guys get knocked down, crashed to the floor, everything. And so those guys have been um back on the court and in full speed uh for several weeks now. Uh in terms of injuries to um De Jante and to Queen, uh those are guys are deep into their rehab. Uh obviously they’re not back yet. I can’t give um a specific date right now for those guys, but they’re really deep into their rehab. and uh uh my conversations with the medical here has been really good over the summer uh just about the process that these guys have been going through. So uh no no no specific dates but I can tell you that the rehab is going really well. So weird and train to be clear they’ll be ready for the season open. Yeah, those guys are like I said they’ve been practicing uh full speed for the last several weeks now. They’ll be able to go during the preseason as well. Yeah, I mean um obviously you monitor the preseason minutes, you know, to get these guys back, but uh these guys have been fully cleared u to go. Um so it’s um it’s no holes barred for those guys. They’re ready to go. And you mentioned finally seeing guys in the gym. It’s one thing that kind of put all of these names together during the summer, but now seeing them in the gym, seeing them play together, what’s kind of your thoughts kind of seeing at the beginning stages? So when you when you uh putting rosters together, um the first place that it looks really good is on paper, right? The second place it look good is on the court. And so that’s why the summer is so important because you need to start seeing these guys play together and get used to each other before you get to training camp. Uh and so for the last probably last month or so, a lot of these guys have been playing together. Zion, uh um Herb, Trey, uh Queen before he got hurt. Um, so that’s that’s really why the this this last month leading up to training camp becomes so important because uh you can put these teams together and it looks good on paper, but until they get on the court and start playing together and figuring each other out, uh, you see guys in settings like these, you see guys after they finish scrimmaging, what you see is them talking to each other and talking about here’s where I like to be, here’s where I like to be. That’s you can’t wait to training camp to start doing that. you want to do it a month out from training camp. And Joe, how much you following up on that? Willie said that y’all have great synergy between the front office and the coaching staff and the players. How much of it do you want to see come organically and how much of it is willie we want to see this or kind of you all figuring out what you want to see maybe not letting it grow organic? No, good question. I I I think that uh for stuff to really work in sports, you know, a a a good portion of it has to be organic. Uh you because in sports, you can’t script out every single thing. You you just can’t. It’s it’s just not the nature of the business. Uh so organically means when I was talking about the guys talking to each other, that’s happening organically. No one’s telling those guys, you guys need to talk to each other about where you like to be and what you those things happen automatically. And so, uh, I do think that, yeah, you have to have people on the same page. You have to have a kind of a plan of how you want to do things, but also, man, those players, man, they that they have to connect organically on the court. U more than anything else, it has to happen like that. What have you seen from Zion since he’s been back in the city? And what do you what have the conversations been with him as far as like what are the expectations this year as far as on the court and off? Yeah, the main thing that I’ve talked to Zion about is just responsibility and accountability. I said, you know, what I’ve said to him is is, you know, with greatness comes responsibility. Uh you don’t get to be great and not responsible. And so there’s just been a heavy emphasis on that. Just being accountable and responsible for what you do. It’s not enough just to be talented. Uh and I’ve said to him, I said, “Look, you know, there’s a difference between talent and great. Those are two different things. You can be talented without any responsibility. You can’t be great without any responsibility. You just can’t. That’s that’s not what greatness is. And so, let’s just make sure that we are responsible and accountable. Uh, and I can tell you he’s been great. Zion has been great. I’ve not had any issues with him. He’s been working extremely hard. I I I see him probably for the last month in and out of the practice facility. Um, really really pushing himself hard. So, I uh have been happy with him this summer. Um, but still at the end of the day, man, you got to be responsible and accountable for everything you do. Joe, you talked about how you want to get everybody on the same page. That’s what you’ve kind of been working on last few weeks or months even. How does that look like between the front office and the coaching staff? Because it sounds like the players are doing their part on the court right now, but what about the rest of the group? You uh communication like uh I I just had a long meeting this morning at 9:00 a.m. with the entire coaching staff with everything and talked about expectations, responsibilities. um everything that we should be trying to accomplish. The way that works is you have to communicate. You cannot work in a silo where you’re not communicating with with the person. So I Willie walks into my office every day. We sit and watch the guys scrimmage and go up and down every day and we’re as we’re watching them scrimmage, we’re talking about what’s happening. You see that play? This would be a good play for that guy. Like so I just think it’s communication. That’s the only way you can be on the same page. The minute you stop communicating is when issues come up and at some point then you’re not on the same page because you haven’t been communicating. So that’s that’s the biggest thing in terms like with the players is organic on the court off the court with the front office and the uh uh head coaches coaching staff. It’s really communication. It’s just back and forth conversations. Joe, can can someone build an NBA team similar to the Pistons team with the mental toughness and physical toughness that you play on? I mean, is it a different type of player today or can someone build a team like that? It’s a different league today. Uh, without a doubt, it’s a different league today. I I also think the elements to winning though remain the same. Like you have to have guys who are committed, who are team first, willing to sacrifice, willing to make the extra pass, willing to give their body up for the next guy. All those things, any championship team you see, whether it was Oklahoma City just now, how unselfish they were, the teams over the past five years, those elements don’t change. Now, style of play change. It might not be as physical uh as it once was, and I’m okay with that. That that’s fine. Uh but the elements to winning and being successful, those are the things that remain the same. Have you seen younger guys settle in now throughout the summer? I’m sorry. Younger guys settle in throughout the summer. Yeah, th those are the guys. Um, so what we’ve done with a lot of those guys is um we’re making sure that uh for instance, I just left and um Peavey was working out with Sadique Bay. Um Fears working out with Jordan P. Uh when Queen is finally getting back on the court, he’s with Cavan Looney. Uh with these young guys, you got to put that veteran experience in front of them. I can sit and talk to them all day long. Need to do this, need to do that, need to do this, but they need to see it on the court and they need to see it from veteran guys on the court. And that’s and that’s what we do with the young guys. Like we pair them with vets who really know how to work. If you see Sadi Bay work, Pavey working out with him has no choice but to work at that pace. Like cuz these these veteran guys, they know how to looney goes extremely hard in his workout. So when Queen is with him, you can’t go have speed and the vet guy is going all out. And so that’s how you get those guys up to speed. You can talk to him. It’s overrated sometimes. I mean, you know, I can sit here and talk to him till I’m blue in the face, but they need to get out there and do it and see it. And to to your point about organically, that’s that’s what I’m talking about. Put them out there. You don’t have to say anything. All of a sudden, you’ll see the young guys working at the same pace as the veteran guys. What do you think you guys have to do to kind of help uh Derek to be ready to go once he’s healthy enough to play and knowing that he’s going to be missing some time coming back on? Yeah. So, what we said to him is that your your legs aren’t aren’t broken and so you can run run. So, he’s so sick of running and riding a bike. Uh we we I asked him, I said, “You know who Lance Armstrong is?” He said, “I’ve heard the name before.” I said, “Yeah, you’re going to be Lance Armstrong here on this bike, man.” And so he came back the next day like I know who that is now. Yeah, you Google it. That’s why you know. So we pushed him about conditioning just you have to get in the best shape possible. Uh and then he’s w he’s right there watching every day. You can see over the last several weeks like he’s more and more anxious to get out there right now. But um until he can get out there, what we’ve emphasized is just get your body in incredible shape. That’ll help you catch up a lot quicker if you’re in great shape. Just in general, how do you kind of feel about uh the big man position with the team with uh you know, bringing back, bringing in, you mentioned Kevin Looney, just where where do you kind of see that group falling into place? I’m a big believer in depth in general. I’m a huge believer in depth. Like if you have depth on your team, uh you have a chance because you can always have someone out there going full speed. You can always have someone out there going really hard. Um it’s one of the things I said about not building your team around one or two or just three guys. Um so when you see us have several big men, uh it’s by design. It’s by design that if you look at every position we have, we have several people that can play. And and that’s by design how we want to build our team. We don’t want to have to depend on just one person or just two people. Uh we want to walk out there every night and send 10 12 people out there every night and know that it could be either one of you guys night tonight. Like it it’s it’s it’s not it’s not written in stone. It has to be one person. It can be anybody’s night on a given night. You talk about maybe Jordan. I know you talked about her Trey coming off of injuries, but Jordan coming here. I know Troy had familiarity with him. Was that somebody that you targeted from when you got here or did that just happen and then you had an opportunity to say we want him? So, so that’s where uh someone like Troy becomes extremely important. So, when he got here, he said, “Um, what do you think about Jordan P?” I said, “I’m not really sure. What do you think?” And he said, “I just had him uh in Washington.” And I said, “Okay, what do you think?” And he said, “He’s your kind of guy.” He said, “He absolutely is obsessed with basketball. He’s absolutely obsessed with it. He loves the game and he’s in the gym non-stop.” Um so we that’s how the initial conversation started. Now it took weeks before we could consummate the trade but the but it started with just that conversation with someone who was familiar with him who had just spent a year with him. Um and one of the things we kept saying to me was Joe he’s he’s in alignment with the age of this group here with with with Herb and Trey and Zion. These guys are all 25 or 26 years old. they know each other, they can grow together for the next five years. And so that’s how the conversation started. And then it just, you know, after a while and the phone calls back and forth, the amount of time it takes sometimes to actually get a trade done, uh, that that was the process. Have you been able to tell how obsessed he is? Yeah, he’s obsessed. Yeah, he’s obsessed with the game. Yeah, he Yeah, he’s non-stop. Um, but quite frankly, we have I can Man, I I can say that we have several guys like that. Uh, Fears is like that. you know, he’s we we we had to stop him from coming into the gym for a while because his legs were just getting so sore and heavy. Like I know you’re 18, but man, you got to rest, man. You got you got to rest at night sometime cuz he’s working out super hard in the morning and then he’s coming back at night. And we have we have at least half dozen, six, seven, eight guys that that have been doing that every day for the last month. They come in in the morning, they back at night, morning, night. And P is one of those guys since he’s been here who does that. Joe, there’s been a lot of things said about this team this summer. A lot of it unflattering, but through your eyes, what are your realistic expectations for a team like? What would entail a good season? So, uh, I told you I had a meeting with the coaches at 9:00 this morning. Um, I said to them like, look, let me set the expectations for you guys right now. So, there’s no misunderstanding. I said, there’s no amount of wins. There’s no you got to make the play in, you got to make the play. None of that. I said, um, what I expect from us is to be like a high competing team every night. And I said, ‘Guys, let me tell you specifically why I say that. If you have a really deep team, if you have 10, 11 guys that you can go to and they all play hard every night because we’re so deep, I said the wins will take care of themselves. I don’t know what that’ll be, but if we play as hard as we can play every night, we’re going to get enough wins where we’re going to be happy. So, I’m not going to put a number on you because I don’t know what that is, but I expect our team to play hard every night. I I I expect no less and I will accept no less from that. And so, that’s exactly what I just said to the coaches at 9:00 this morning. I say, “So, if you coaches are wondering what do I expect?” I just told you like I I I don’t want to see a team that plays half speed. We should never sit here accept and watch a team that doesn’t go all out. That’s that’s exactly what I expect from this team this year. When you when you have an opportunity, you mentioned talking about greatness and the pursuit of it. I guess you don’t always have players on the roster that you can really talk to about that. When you do, how specific is your prescription for pursuing greatness? Like in terms of the examples you give what you want to see, or is it more like you just lay it out conceptually and let them try to find their own way there? Uh, I I I do lay it out conceptually, but there are a few specific examples I’ll give. Um, such as I’ve said to him, I said, um, look, when things go well, team is playing great, you’re playing great, you’re going to get the bulk of the compliments and the credit, but when things are not going well, uh, you should be the first one to step to the media after the games and speak for the team. You should you should always step into that responsibility. And that goes back to accountability and responsibility. You can’t just be the person when things are going well. You have to be the person when things don’t go well, when things slide, you lose two games in a row, three games in a row. Yeah, you have to step to the mic and face the media and face the questions, be respectful, answer them honestly, but that’s what accountability and responsibility looks like. Going back to the expectations question, uh, when you make a trade like you like you guys did on draft night, do you think that kind of sends the message we expect to be a playoff team when you give away your first round pick the following season? No, I’m just trying to build a deep team. Like I just said, I I I’ve not put that expectction expectation on anyone. I expect us to be competitive every night. Before you can get to playoffs, before you can get to an amount of wins, the first thing you have to establish is, man, we compete hard every single night. before you can start talking about numbers and play in and playoffs. If you don’t establish that in your building first, you’re just talking. You you’re you’re just talking. You’re just you’re just giving quotes out at that point. So, for me, it’s it’s a process of establishing a hard competitive plan team every night and then we’ll get to the the wins and losses. That would be if we made a trade or didn’t make a trade, I’d be saying the same thing here. So the trade is inconsequential to the belief of what I’m talking about. You get what I’m saying? So I I’m not No, it wasn’t like, okay, we made this trade, I expect to make the playoffs. Ah, that’s shortsighted to me. You got to build something deeper than that. Joe, is De Jante the veteran y’all have paired with? Yes. Uh, but he, you know, obviously he can’t go yet, but he will be he will be paired with uh De Jante and and with Pu as well that we’ll have him with both of those guys. and and how important is training camp in the early season uh for fears with the opportunity he’s going to have with Jante not being there and how can Dejante kind of mentor him through that. Yeah. So uh the conversation uh with fears has been look uh you’ll determine how your rookie year goes. I won’t, the coach won’t, you will. You’ll have every opportunity to establish yourself and show what you can do early on. Uh, and you’ll show that you’re either ready for it or you’re not. And so I can’t do that for you. Coach can’t do that for you. There’s only one person. You step on the court and you show it. And if you’re ready, we’re going to roll with you. If you’re not, you know, we’re going to bring you along at your pace. You know, the pace that you needs. And I think that’s the fair way with every player. When player comes into training camp, when you’re a player and you come into training camp, that’s really all you want to hear. Like, I just want to know I have a fair shot to compete. And so that’s that’s what we do here with everybody. like you know you you you you can’t take that away from a player when he’s coming into training camp where he doesn’t feel like whatever he does it doesn’t matter like it you just don’t want to do that and so with with fears that’s exactly what we’ve done like you’ll you’ll dictate what happens here with you have that conversation with them how much do you like his grit of not wanting to be out the gym but you having to force him to stay out yeah um I love that obviously I listen uh to do this at the highest levels it really takes face that like you have to be obsessed with this. Like if you’re really trying to win, you know what I’m saying? Like if you’re trying to win rings, win these trophies, uh if you’re trying to be a contender, you have to be obsessed with this. And if you’re not, then you can be good. You know, you can you can be a playin team or a playoff team or whatever. But if you really trying to be like a contender, one of the best teams and you’re trying to build something, you have to have people who are obsessed with this. There’s not a winning team anywhere in this league right now. No championship teams you can look at that you can’t point to somebody or a group of people who are obsessed with this. And and yeah, I love that about Fears. I love that about Pool. I love that about a lot of the guys over there right now. You look at the season. I know that it’s a marathon and things evolve over the months. Do you break it down to like 10ame groupings or I I just curious as to how you look at each I’ve never did that. I’ve never done that. I really haven’t. I’ I’ve not like broken it down into um like 10 game blocks or something like that or one. I I just I just haven’t like um I think that to get through a season um it’s cliche, but man, you really just have to look at the next game. Let’s say you play let’s say you play tonight. you have an awful game tonight and we have to play tomorrow night. I promise you, you’re not thinking about that 10ame block. As a player, the only thing you’re thinking about is I cannot wait to get back on the floor tomorrow night to get this bad taste out of my mouth. And so it the season is too long to start thinking way ahead. And so it forces you because we play so many games. Um football they got one game a week. So you can think ahead to that. But in basketball, man, it’s too many games that are coming too fast for you to start thinking, well, 3 weeks from now, we have this ah it’s it’s I I got to get back on the horse tomorrow night and have a great game tomorrow night. And so you you’re always thinking about the next game. What do you think this group or what this trip to Australia is going to do for this group and serve maybe as a springboard this season? Um, usually trips like this are great for bonding. It’s kind of it’s a new group now here and a lot of new faces in here now. So, probably be really good for that in terms of uh the first trip out is 20 hours. Um, it’s a long time to bond. Uh but um I do think it’s it it’ll be really good for for for that just just for the bonding part of it because there are so many new guys on the team and uh new front office and all. I think it would really be good for that. With Trey, we saw him take on a bigger usage role in the offense last year with Trey. Trey, uh so what do you think people should kind of expect from him this year? Kind of stepping into a role where he knows who he’s going to be for his team. He knows how much you guys, you know, kind of believe in him and want him to kind of step into the world. What do you think? Same thing that I said to the young lady about um fears. Players dictate who they’re going to be on the court. Players dictate who they’re going to be. When you’re a player and you step out there on the court, you dictate who you’re going to be. Uh had some great conversations with Trey. Love his talent. Love his ability. um he’s got even more steps to greatness that he’s trying to take and I really like that about him. He really wants to be great. I absolutely love that about Trey Murphy. Um but every season is a new season and like the next step he’ll have to take. You know, he knows we are 100% behind him, 100% support him, thinks he’s a really really good young player, but he wants more. like like he has talked to me. He sat in my office and said, “Man, I want to be great. I want this.” And so that’s how it works. Like we, you know, he has the support from us. It’s new season. Let’s get out there. Let’s get it. You know, let’s And I’ve said that to him. Got to go get it. Like no one’s going to come and hand you greatness. No one’s going to come and hand you all the things that you want. In this business, you got to go get it. And I I think he will. I because he’s he’s another one extremely hard worker, man. He he puts in a lot of work. John, what have you kind of seen from from Willie in your this time being around him? Like what do you kind of like about Yeah, that that he that he engages just with me. Like he’s not Willie is sitting right next to me most days watching everything that’s going on and we are constantly talking. We we are I’m telling you every day he’s in my office. every single day and we’re sitting there talking about the team and different uh combinations, who can do what, the depth we have, the style of play, like we we’ve just we’ve had great conversations. We uh we talk about the Lions and the Saints and Troy Weaver’s Washington Commanders. We talk football every day. Uh but yeah, we uh we we have really good relationship in that way that we can discuss anything and I’m telling you that is really the key with front office and coaches, the communication back and forth. When when you played obviously there’s a perception that um guys played hurt a lot more then than they do now. And I’m wondering first of all if you think that’s true and second um you know so much has changed in sports science and I think a lot of the concerns that the fan base has had with this team over the last few years is how many how many missed games there have been to injury? Sure. Do you feel like you’ve tweaked the approach on that or how do you how do you get guys to push themselves without making dumb decisions about hurting themselves worse? Yeah. So, the first thing is is uh let me tell you what hasn’t changed is that um you really don’t want to put guys in jeopardy on the court. You really don’t. Like like um that’s the toughest thing to do cuz if you go out there and and and you’re not ready to be out there, you can easily get embarrassed in this league. That has always been the case. So, you want to be able to compete when you go out on the court. uh just in terms of our approach, I’ve spent a lot of time with the medical here, a lot of time with the medical here to dive into that. So, what’s our process and all and so, um I don’t want to sit here and divulge everything that we’ve talked about medically, but uh we’ve gone over the process of how we get guys back on the court, how we treat injuries, everything we do, we’ve gone through with a fine tooth comb the entire summer. Um, and so I I do think that, you know, what we’ll try to do is get by guys back on the court um, as quick as we can, but man, I don’t want to put guys out there who aren’t ready to be out there. They’re not going to help us. If if they if they’re not at their best to be out there, it’s it’s hard for them to help us. And so, um, just know that we’ve gone over everything here. I mean, the whole summer, we we’ve spent a lot of time on the medical this summer. Considering the team’s history, do you feel like there’s more there’s more that needs to be done to make sure guys are staying on? Well, first of all, you got to know what the process has been in the past. And so that’s what I’ve done a lot and we’ve tweaked some things about how we’re going to do things. The medical, you got to be careful here. I can’t divulge too much about the medical, but I’m just saying we’ve tweaked some things that may have been done in the past, but um the main thing is that like, okay, what’s the process? And we’ve gone over every single guy, every single injury, and what was the process of every single one of these. And some guys have had multiple injuries. So, we’ve gone over all of those. And we’ve sat and exhaustively we’ve gone through everything, but I think it was it’s important like to get everything right. And so, that’s been a big process this summer. Do you think that your experience having played helps? Does that I don’t know if you even want to go there, but like does that allow you to talk to players individually about how you would like them to evaluate it when they’re ready to get back on the court because maybe some guys are just very apprehensive, you know, maybe their minds aren’t in the right place in terms of when it’s too soon or or stuff like that. I I I think you like each guy’s different, you know what I mean? Like each guy is different. Like some guys can be 75 and go, I’m ready. I I can do this at 75. And some guys got to be 95. And so that’s a personal thing. And the guy who’s 75, uh, if he can go and he shows that he can go, then you let him. The guy who’s got to be 95, if he’s not ready until he gets there, even if he gets out there somehow someone’s coerced him to get out there, he’s not going to be at his best because mentally he’s not ready to be out there. So you you know what I’m saying? like you have to treat each one of those situations separately with guys in terms of injuries. Um, and make sure that they’re not only physically but mentally ready to be back on the court. Uh, it’s like you got to be mentally ready when you when you step out there. Like you you have to be mentally ready when you step out there. If you’re not, it’s just not going to go well. Joe, since taking the job, what’s been your most pleasant surprise? Whether it’s learning something about player, a process, anything. Um, I’m uh um I don’t know if there’s another setup like this on uh a campus like this. So, uh we’re some big big NFL fans uh on on the other side. We’re and everybody has their team and I I made a list of everybody in the office. Uh, I had one of the young guys and one of the interns, make a list of everybody and who their team is. And I said, “You have to state your team if you’re in this building.” So, you guys come over to the office, if you walk by people’s office, you’re going to see the hats. I bought hats for everybody. And so, I have a Saints hat in mind. And, uh, Troy has a Commander hat. There’s all kinds of hats in there. What what guys team? So, biggest surprise for me is being on the campus and being connected to an NFL team like this cuz we all are like huge NFL fans over here. So, I don’t know if Do you know if there’s any other I don’t I don’t think there’s another setup like this where you’re connected. Um, and I run into Mickey. I run into some of the Saints players, you know, at the cafeteria and stuff. So, I just think it’s a I think it’s a incredible setup. So unique, different than anywhere else. Uh, the setup that we have here. those types of players. They know who Jordan is. I don’t know if they know or not. I don’t say a word to to I don’t know. Listen, you would be surprised at um the stuff that um a 18-year-old like like like Fears and even Queen the stuff that they don’t know. Like it’s just it’s just amazing. It’s just amazing. I told them TV used to cut off at night and they looked at me like I was crazy like what do you mean? I was like TV used to go off at night. He was like what does that mean? I was like, “You have to change the channel.” I was like, “No, it went off.” “When did you walk?” I said, “It went off at like midnight and they played the Star Spangle Banner and they would Fierce was looking at me like what?” So, yeah, that kind of stuff is funny to me. Yeah. I remember all that. Yeah. The flag and then, you know, the flat line. Yeah. They thought I was from a foreign country, man. From from Mars or something when I was telling them that. Did you buy a a Lion’s hat to hedge your bets a little bit? Had what? Did you buy a Lion’s hat to hedge your bets a little bit? No, no, no, no, no. I I I’m a Lions fan. Willie I bought Willie I had the guy go out and buy everybody’s friend. Willy’s got his Lions fan uh cap in there, you know. I saw some Steelers hats Kansas. I like some Ashley got her uh her Saints cap, you know. Bats got his Saints cap. Like everybody’s got their cap. But you you’ll see like I I seen some hats and I like you a Jets fan. What you doing? So it’s it’s it’s pretty it’s always I’ve always done that and I think it’s it’s always really good camaraderie in the building. You guys obviously have a focus on adding young talent to the roster during the summer. How important is it going to be to kind of establish who those veteran voices are going to be in the locker room with BI and CJ? Yeah, leadership is is not something you can appoint. It has to be natural. And we have some guys, Dejante, Pu, Looney, those guys, Trey Herb, those guys have been around. Um, and those guys, you can see them during the summer taking on those leadership roles, feeding into those young guys, stepping up when guys come together and speaking to the group and all those things. You you can’t appoint that. Like it you can appoint who you want to appoint, but the players are going to react to the guys who are the natural leaders for them. Hey Joe, we hadn’t talked to you since Jose had a fall and being Is he Is he okay? Yeah, he’s okay. Jose and I were texting at 1:00 a.m. that morning back and forth. Uh, and yeah, he he he was fine. And I think he flew back a day or two later back here. He’s been in the gym like flying up, you know, he’s being Jose flying up and down the court. But he’s been great. Actually, that night though, I remember it was like 1:00 a.m. He and I were texting that night because I saw it and reached out to him. And so, he’s good. He’s good to go. Thank you guys. I appreciate you so much. Thank you.

New Orleans Pelicans Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations Joe Dumars speaks with the media from the Ochsner Sports Performance Center on Monday, Sept. 22 ahead of the 2025-26 NBA Preseason.
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