Borrego made several bold decisions<\/a> that could have caused friction in the locker room. None of the moves did.<\/p>\nAs soon as Borrego took over, he inserted rookie Derik Queen into the starting lineup. Another change he implemented for seven games was bringing Zion Williamson off the bench. Convincing the face of the franchise to come off the bench doesn\u2019t always go over well, but Borrego made it work and Williamson embraced it. Borrego also benched Jordan Poole, the second highest paid player on the roster and has limited his role. Queen and fellow rookie Jeremiah Fears also now come off the bench, yet he has given them enough quality minutes to help them continue to develop.<\/p>\n
He’s had success managing rookies before. When he was the head coach of the Charlotte Hornets, LaMelo Ball won Rookie of the Year.\u00a0Excluding the COVID- shortened season, the Hornets increased their win total each season under Borrego and finished 43-39 record in his fourth and final season. Charlotte averaged just 22 wins per year in the three seasons immediately following his departure.<\/p>\n
This season as an interim coach, he’s had to teach his principles and try to develop team chemistry without having a training camp. His players understand how daunting that task can be.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s tough, especially picking up the job early on in the season when you don\u2019t really have a summer to prepare what you really want to do,\u201d said forward Trey Murphy.\u201d So you\u2019re just going on the fly to an extent. Just trying to motivate guys and trying to get guys to play the way you want them to play is tough. I definitely want to commend him for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Pelicans are 10-5 over the last 15 games, with eight of those 10 wins by double digits. Since the trade deadline in early February, the Pelicans boast victories over postseason bound teams like the Minnesota Timberwolves, Philadelphia 76ers, Golden State Warriors, Toronto Raptors and the Los Angeles Clippers twice.<\/p>\n
Dumars hasn\u2019t spoken to the media since November when he made the coaching change. So we don\u2019t know where he is in the process of finding the team\u2019s next head coach. In an interview with The Times-Picayune last May shortly after replacing David Griffin as the team\u2019s chief decision maker, Dumars had this to say about his expectations for the franchise.<\/p>\n
“The style of play \u2014 resilience, toughness, playing hard, never quit \u2014 that\u2019s what we want people to see right away,” Dumars said.<\/p>\n
The Pelicans under Borrego have checked all those boxes. While many teams at the bottom of the standings are tanking for draft picks, the Pelicans don\u2019t have any draft picks to tank for. So they are still competing, which is why\u00a0 they have climbed to 11th in the Western Conference standings heading into Saturday’s game. The Pelicans rallied from an 18-point deficit in Wednesday’s win over the Clippers and ended up winning by 13.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re sprinting to the finish line,\u201d Borrego said. \u201cThe goal here is to build momentum. I\u2019m really proud of the group that they have bought in to that. They are not giving in to the season. They are not giving in within the game. To me, that\u2019s resiliency.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Pelicans (25-46) have eclipsed their win total from last season when they won just 21 games. Injuries plagued Green\u2019s team last season and have played a part in this season\u2019s disappointment. Especially the absence of Dejounte Murray, who missed the first 58 games recovering from the Achilles injury suffered last January. The Pels are 5-4 since Murray\u2019s return. Murray’s steady play and leadership would have likely navigated the Pels through their lulls this season. But Borrego doesn\u2019t get caught up in the hypotheticals of what this season could have been if the team was healthy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t go there,\u201d Borrego said. \u201cWhat I can look forward to is what\u2019s ahead. Stay in the moment. I try not to look back at \u2018what if?\u2019 We can\u2019t do anything about the past. All we control is what\u2019s in front of us now. I see a group playing together and playing for one another. I\u2019m just enjoying this time with them. I see the future here. I see ahead to what this group can be with this vision coming to light.\u201d<\/p>\n
He’d like nothing more than for the Pelicans\u2019 future to include him.<\/p>\n
Dumars and Troy Weaver will ultimately make that decision. Names like Darvin Ham (who coached the Los Angeles Lakers two seasons from 2022-2024) and former UCONN coach Kevin Ollie are ones that have floated around as possibilities Dumars and Weaver could be considering for the job. Here’s hoping Dumars does a thorough coaching search. That search should include Borrego. If the Pelicans don\u2019t hire him, someone else likely will in this next coaching cycle. Borrego was one of the final candidates for jobs with the Cavs, the New York Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers the past two years. His results this season with a healthy roster will have more teams calling. His players know it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m excited to go play hard for him because everybody is being evaluated,\u201d Murray said when he returned from his injury. \u201cHe\u2019s being evaluated for this so we want to go through a brick wall for him to put him in a great position for here or elsewhere. Hopefully it\u2019s here.\u201d<\/p>\n
He’s made a strong case.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James Borrego will almost certainly be a head coach somewhere in the NBA again. Chances are, it’ll be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3796],"tags":[7,5498,6,478,470,4073,4072,675],"class_list":{"0":"post-670515","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-orleans-pelicans","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-hardwall","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-new-orleans","12":"tag-new-orleans-pelicans","13":"tag-neworleans","14":"tag-neworleanspelicans","15":"tag-pelicans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116266714479181704","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}