Zach Harper on hire " Pelican chief - Mosley lands in New Orleans"
Yesterday, the New Orleans Pelicans announced they’ve hired Jamahl Mosley as their next coach. You may remember that the Magic fired Mosley after they lost to the Pistons in the first round. The Pelicans, who fired Willie Green 12 games into the season, have been reportedly interested in Mosley since November.
Mosley fits the defense-first mentality that New Orleans lead executive Joe Dumars prefers. In Mosley’s five seasons in Orlando, the Magic finished 17th, 16th, second, second and 11th in defensive rating. Twice under Green, the Pelicans finished in the top seven in defensive rating, but they’ve been in the bottom half of the league in six of the last eight seasons. Dumars needs to bring in more defensive help, but Mosley can usually extract that out of players.
The remaining questions for the Pelicans under Mosley are:
- What’s going to happen with Zion Williamson? He has two years left on his deal.
- Will the Pelicans trade Trey Murphy III to bring in a haul of players and/or assets?
- How much of this roster even fits into what the Pelicans want to build?
- Do rookies Derik Queen and Jeremiah Fears play enough defense to fit what Mosley wants?
- Are the Pelicans going to retool into a quick turnaround, or do they have the patience to build for the long term?
- When are the Pelicans going to get better uniforms?
- Is Mosley going to have an assistant coach to handle his biggest blind spot, which is a good offensive system?
I don’t know what should happen with Zion at this point (he’s extension eligible!), but I love the idea of Murphy being a main guy for them. I think he could be a second guy on a very good team. It feels like Dumars has a lot of reshaping of his roster to do. Reminder, he won’t have a first-round pick to use this year to help do it.