told<\/a> reporters. \u201cI really do believe that. And I think being able to open the floor up more for him, attacking, being able to play him in different positions, because he\u2019s an excellent basketball player with a high IQ for playmaking, for making guys around him better, knowing when to make plays and the right passes to make.\u201d<\/p>\nWilliamson is coming off a season where he averaged 21.0 points, 5.7 rebounds and shot 60 percent from the field across 62 games.<\/p>\n
But for Mosley, the focus goes beyond scoring numbers. The former Magic coach wants to create more spacing and offensive freedom to fully maximize Williamson\u2019s unique skill set.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think just opening the floor up a lot more for him to attack the basket, giving space, being able to live at the free throw line consistently,\u201d Mosley said of Williamson. \u201cSome of the things he\u2019s done here have been obviously spectacular \u2014 and so just making sure that we continue that along with us being healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Health remains the biggest question surrounding the former No. 1 overall pick. Williamson has played 30 games or fewer in three of his seven NBA seasons and missed the entire 2021-22 campaign because of injury issues.<\/p>\n
Still, Mosley sees enormous potential in a roster that also features Trey Murphy III, Dejounte Murray, Herb Jones, Saddiq Bey, Jeremiah Fears and Derik Queen. Defense and versatility appear set to become the identity of this new-look Pelicans group.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe spent hours and hours and hours talking to Jamal,\u201d Pelicans executive vice president Joe Dumars said. \u201cJamal is the person that aligned with us and our vision more than anybody else. \u2026 We feel like we\u2019ve gotten a guy that\u2019s the right fit for us, think alike, we look at the game alike, our approach is going to be the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
READ MORE: Lakers Eyeing Defensive Anchor Robert Williams III<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New Orleans Pelicans are handing Jamahl Mosley the keys to a franchise desperate for a turnaround, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":745085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3796],"tags":[7,6,478,470,4073,4072,675],"class_list":["post-745084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-orleans-pelicans","tag-basketball","tag-nba","tag-new-orleans","tag-new-orleans-pelicans","tag-neworleans","tag-neworleanspelicans","tag-pelicans"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116645135881732493","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745084","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=745084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/745085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=745084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=745084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=745084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}