NEW ORLEANS — Shortly after taking over as president of the New Orleans Pelicans in July, Joe Dumars spoke to his team’s scouting department and emphasized two things — first, that character was of the utmost importance, and second, whoever they brought in had to be able to defend.

Shortly after he departed, those same scouts looked at their phones and were shocked to see the Pelicans had traded for Jordan Poole — a subpar defender whose attitude questions had dogged him for years; his comportment has already raised eyebrows in his limited time in New Orleans.

That story, which made the rounds at Summer League and was recently reported by HoopsHype’s Michael Scotto, is merely one of the many entertaining tales in circulation about the Pelicans’ dysfunction over the last half year since team governor Gayle Benson hired Dumars. And after the Oklahoma City Thunder pasted them 126-109 on Monday, in a battle of the NBA’s most serious franchise against its most comically unserious one, it appears 2025-26 is already a lost season for the 2-12 Pelicans. New Orleans trailed by 23 points just eight minutes into the game and never recovered.

Dumars was hired after no real search took place, with multiple league sources saying his is among the league’s most generous executive contracts despite the otherwise extremely tightfisted Pelicans operation under Benson. Yet as far as front-office gigs go, his appears only slightly more demanding than Kawhi Leonard’s endorsement contract with Aspiration.

Instead, Dumars seems to have outsourced nearly the entire job to former Detroit Pistons exec Troy Weaver. The only notable New Orleans move that appeared to have Dumars’ imprint was Saturday’s firing of coach Willie Green.

In particular, Dumars bringing in Weaver and handing him the general manager job has left rival executives utterly baffled. The Pistons went 74-244 in Weaver’s four years at the helm in Detroit, and while there were some factors beyond his control, there wasn’t exactly a bidding war to get him back at the helm of a franchise. Sources in Detroit say nobody from New Orleans called to vet Weaver before he was hired.

The Poole trade was a perfect example, a player who seemed to fit poorly with Dumars’ stated preferences but one with whom Weaver was familiar from his time with the Washington Wizards and fit his “type” for aggressive, attacking guards. The other Weaver-led move that raised eyebrows all over the league, of course, was the decision to trade two likely 2026 lottery picks so the Pelicans could select big man Derik Queen at No. 13 in the 2025 draft.

Queen, a Baltimore product with whom Weaver was deeply familiar via his long history in youth basketball in that region, became a target for Weaver come hell or high water, and he ended up paying a huge price. The Pelicans gave up their own unprotected pick in 2026 to the Atlanta Hawks, which right now would have the fourth-best odds of winning the lottery in a loaded 2026 draft, and returned a top-4 protected pick from the 1-13 Pacers to Indiana. It’s only November, and Hawks fans are already giddily posting Pelicans score updates on social media.

That makes Weaver a convenient piñata, but to blame him misses the bigger picture. The entire point of having an experienced old hand like Dumars in charge is to pump the brakes on trading valuable picks in a loaded draft for a more speculative play in the middle of the 2025 first round, especially when 2026 was unlikely to be a playoff season for the Pels given Zion Williamson’s unreliability and the 2025 trade of Brandon Ingram. Dumars entrusting his hired hands to pick Micah Peavy in the second round is one thing, but letting them make a big-picture decision with a potential decade-long impact is quite another.

As for Weaver, he’s not a cap strategist or trade negotiator, but many in the league speak highly of his ability as a talent evaluator. In his decade-plus in Oklahoma City, he was instrumental in the selections of Russell Westbrook and Steven Adams. Those who worked with him describe him as supremely plugged into youth basketball, especially in the Baltimore-Washington “DMV” area (i.e., D.C.-Maryland-Virginia), and a savant at watching all 10 players on the court. Weaver’s “type” is big men of all kinds and forceful, aggressive, attacking guards — Jaden Ivey would be a perfect example from his Detroit tenure.

However, the weaknesses that undermined him in Detroit were being stubborn to a fault in his evaluations and in players inside his zone of familiarity. That led him astray in 2020 when he picked Killian Hayes at No. 7 with his first Detroit lottery pick when other staffers preferred Tyrese Haliburton. It should be noted that he later stocked Detroit’s cupboard with Cade Cunningham, Jalen Duren, Isaiah Stewart and Ausar Thompson. While Cunningham and Thompson were the consensus choices in those spots, Duren and Stewart were not.
Similarly, moving heaven and earth to select Queen (after the Pelicans had already taken an attacking guard, Jeremiah Fears, with the seventh pick) fit this blueprint to a tee.

That this was allowed to happen is less an indictment of Weaver than of Benson’s arm’s-length management of the Pelicans, who basically operate as a subsidiary of the New Orleans Saints, and in turn, Dumars’ arm’s-length operation of basketball operations that empowered an underling to make such a massive move. It’s telling that the Pelicans couldn’t even get around to green-lighting the firing of Green until the Saints were on a bye week. The Pels train at the Saints’ facility, which you’ll be shocked to learn is optimized for an NFL team and not the NBA, and for years have lagged behind their rivals when it comes to investments in training facilities, staffing and player performance support.

As for the coaching change, that deserves its own special chapter in the story of New Orleans’ ongoing dysfunction. For starters, Green being dismissed so early — with rumors about his job security cropping up a week into the campaign — is a perfect case of the adage that if you fire a coach in the first half of the season, it means you should have done it over the summer.

Alas, the Pelicans couldn’t fire Green largely because the owner was besties with Green’s wife and wouldn’t allow it. Yes, really. Former GM David Griffin reportedly tried to pull the trigger twice last season and wasn’t allowed to.

Interim coach James Borrego, it should be said, had his own adventure with the franchise this summer. He had multiple offers to join other teams as a lead assistant, most notably from the New York Knicks, and get a significant pay bump, but the Pelicans wouldn’t permit him to leave because they knew they might quickly need a coach-in-waiting for Green. Borrego spent the entirety of summer league seated away from the rest of the Pelicans staff during games.

While it appears Borrego will coach out this already-lost season for the Pels, it’s more likely an audition for his next job. His pregame news conference on Sunday emphasized increasing the team’s pace and playing with more joy as immediate priorities, but he’s still working with the same roster Green had. He can’t make Williamson healthy or stop Karlo Matković from goaltending his own dunk attempt (something that really happened in Sunday’s loss to the Golden State Warriors). Long-term, nobody will be surprised if a Weaver-connected candidate, such as former UConn and G League Ignite coach Kevin Ollie, gets the job permanently after the season.

At a franchise level, the Pelicans have never spent into the luxury tax, although they’ve not had a team that would justify such an expenditure since Chris Paul left, and play in what is arguably the league’s worst arena. The team is a distant third in the sport fandom hierarchy of a small market, far behind the Saints and LSU. While Benson insisted in a recent interview that the team was not for sale, it’s not hard to find people in the league who wonder how long the franchise can realistically continue in New Orleans.

In the meantime, Pelicans fans can only cling to the small flickers of hope that come with any sports franchise. Fears has taken his lumps as a 19-year-old point guard, but some of his forays to the rim have been mouth-watering, and he’s already claimed the starting job. (Partly this was a result of Poole being ghastly bad, but still). Fears has to shoot better, trust his left hand more at the rim and improve as a facilitator, but he’s already put together a pretty impressive greatest-hits tape of drives to the basket. On Sunday, he scored six times at the rim against an elite Golden State defense.

Queen’s play thus far has been encouraging as well, albeit with a few more ups and downs. He had five straight double-figure games in early November and has had eye-opening moments as a ballhandler and passer, but on other nights, his indifferent defense and lack of a 3-point game have made him more of a liability. The issue is less about the player, of course, than the fact he will have to massively overachieve his draft position to justify the cost of acquiring him.

Nonetheless, the premise of a Fears-Queen combo leading the Pels into the future would be a lot more believable minus the organizational dysfunction that has been a near-constant feature of Benson’s ownership and that has only accelerated in the last six months. As the Pelicans meander toward whatever it is they’re doing next and Hawks fans take inappropriate delight in their demise, it’s clear the coaching change alone isn’t going to fix what ails this franchise.

Cup geekery: The maximum chaos scenario

We did it, everyone! After two rounds of games in West Group C, all five teams are tied at 1-1. It’s possible to get all five tied at 2-2 when this ends via a very specific set of outcomes. For example, if the Denver Nuggets beat the San Antonio Spurs but lose to the Houston Rockets, Houston loses to Golden State, Golden State loses to the Portland Trail Blazers and Portland loses to San Antonio, all five teams will finish 2-2 and the group will be decided by the point differential tie-break. Maximum chaos!!

More likely, the Denver-Houston game on Friday will play a massive role in settling things (it is also, of course, a huge regular-season game in its own right). The winner of that will likely lead the group in point differential; Denver would then clinch with a win in its final game and at least one Portland loss, while Houston would do so with a win in its final game and at least one Spurs loss. Portland and Golden State also have an elimination game of sorts on Friday; both teams need to win out and have some fortune to advance.

Elsewhere in the West, things are more straightforward. The Los Angeles Lakers and LA Clippers control Group B but don’t play this week. Group A still seems headed for a Minnesota Timberwolves-Thunder showdown at the end of the month, but the Phoenix Suns can inject themselves into the race by beating the Wolves on Friday.

In the East, the Toronto Raptors have all but locked up Group A; the Raptors will clinch with Friday’s layup at home against Washington. Group B will almost certainly be decided by a Detroit-Orlando Magic meeting at the end of the month, but the Boston Celtics remain alive. In Group C, the Milwaukee Bucks are the only unbeaten team, but they have two tough road games left. The only game in the group this week is a de facto elimination between the Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat on Friday.

Say goodbye to (seven teams with two losses): Brooklyn Nets, Philadelphia 76ers, Charlotte Hornets, Sacramento Kings, Utah Jazz, Dallas Mavericks and Pelicans

On the ropes (14 teams with one loss): Memphis Grizzlies, Nuggets, Rockets, Spurs, Warriors, Trail Blazers, Heat, Knicks, Bulls, Celtics, Pacers, Wizards, Hawks and Cleveland Cavaliers

Tournament tough (nine teams with no losses): Bucks, Pistons, Magic, Raptors, Timberwolves, Thunder, Suns, Lakers and Clippers

Friday’s elimination games: Trail Blazers-Warriors, Nuggets-Rockets, Heat-Bulls, Pacers-Cavaliers

Prospect of the week: AJ Dybantsa, 6-8 Fr. SF, BYU

In one of the first showcase college games of the new year, AJ Dybantsa was mostly invisible in the first half as his BYU team fell way behind No. 3 Connecticut. Then he led a huge late rally that nearly saw the Cougars come all the way back from 20 points down before ultimately falling, 86-84, on Saturday. He finished with 25 points.

For Dybantsa, the game showed some of the elite tools that have evaluators excited about him as a potential No. 1 pick in the 2026 draft, as well as some of the weaknesses that have left some comparing him more to Andrew Wiggins than Kevin Durant as a prospect.

First things first: Dybantsa can get to his jump shot any time he wants. He is a big forward with great elevation and is very comfortable shooting off the dribble. Particularly from his preferred office space on the left block, defenders can’t stop it even if they know it’s coming.
Watch here as he sets up in the post and then gets into his jumper with a hard dribble right. Dybantsa got several buckets this way against Connecticut.

Now, for the stuff that still needs work. For starters, Dybantsa’s handle is a question mark, with a high, loose dribble that can get away from him at times. On this play, both his right- and left-hand dribbles got out of control, leading to a turnover.

Dybantsa has room to grow as a passer, too, and reading the game in general. Right now, he’s a bucket-getter who only shows flashes of ball distribution. He finished the UConn game with no assists and has only eight on the season through four games. While he made one or two nice reads out of pick-and-roll, including a sweet arcing pass to a roller before he’d even used his dribble (he didn’t get the assist when his big tried to load up for a poster dunk that was rejected), he tends to get tunnel vision once he puts it on the floor.

Defensively, scouts want to feel him more, too. His size and mobility automatically give him an advantage as a multi-positional defender who can theoretically guard one through four, but there’s still a need to see it more consistently during the games.

Overall, nobody is basing a June decision on what happens in November. Half the battle in evaluating one-and-dones is tracking their progress between November and March, rather than overreacting to their first college games.

BYU is playing in a stacked Big 12 conference with a loaded schedule; in particular, a showdown against Kansas and his fellow rival for the top pick, Darryn Peterson, should be an NBA scout honey trap. Saturday’s showcase was a good first salvo from Dybantsa, but between him and the three other candidates for the top pick (Peterson, Duke’s Cameron Boozer and Tennessee’s Nate Ament), there is much basketball left to be played.

Rookie of the week: Will Richard, 6-3 SG, Golden State

Zero. That’s how many guard-guard screens Will Richard set in his final year at Florida, according to Warriors coach Steve Kerr, after Golden State player development director Seth Cooper analyzed his tape.

But on a team that relies heavily on such actions to free up Steph Curry, Richard has proved to be a remarkably quick study after the Warriors took him with the 56th pick in the draft. He has started the last three games, all Warriors wins, while Jonathan Kuminga is out, and posted a 17.7 PER in 13 games. It’s the third year in a row Golden State has identified a back-end rotation player in the 50s, after selecting Trayce Jackson-Davis (57) and Quinten Post (54) the previous two years.

Needless to say, I’m kicking myself for only having Richard 62nd on my board after he measured poorly at the combine. Richard constantly flashed as an off-ball role player at Florida, including 18 points and eight rebounds in their NCAA championship game win over Houston, and while he was an older prospect with less upside, his skill set indicated an NBA fit.

In this particular case, however, there was one other built-in advantage. Richard grew up a Warriors fan even though he was raised in Georgia, making his adaptation to their system even quicker, especially in his newfound role as a screener.

“That just goes back to me watching the Warriors growing up,” Richard said. “I feel watching their system, I knew that [guard-guard screen] was something that they implemented in their offense a lot. So just watching them and then trying to see when to slip, when to hold the screen and stuff like that.”

“Our guys saw it in August when Will came to work at Chase [Center] this summer,” Kerr said. “And our guys had it in the gym in August, and they were doing all the guard, guard stuff, and by the end of the month, it was like that (snaps fingers).”

It’s not just screening, of course; Richard’s ability to dribble, shoot and pass at an NBA level has helped. He’s shooting 40.3 percent from 3 and an amazing 78.1 percent inside the arc, with 17 assists against just ten turnovers.

While some of the phenomenal efficiency may cool off, Richard’s shot selection and general patience as an offensive player should allow him to continue thriving in a secondary role. Only three of his 76 shots have been long 2s, and his awareness around the rim helps him finish at a high rate despite measuring short for a wing.

Watch here, for instance, as the whole package comes together. He slips out of an early-clock guard-guard screen with Curry to create an advantage, turns down the first at-rim attempt knowing Victor Wembanyama is lurking and they still have time, and it comes back to him for a much easier shot at the end.

Before Sunday’s win over New Orleans, Kerr noted Richard’s college experience and basketball IQ, as with Post and Jackson-Davis, made him a relatively easy fit in Golden State’s read-and-react-heavy system.

“What Quentin, Trace and Will all have in common is they played four years,” Kerr said. “They came in with a really strong fundamental base, ready to play in a lot of ways because they had so much experience beforehand.

“You know, some guys pick things up quickly. I do think the college experience, especially playing in big games, I mean, Final Four, national championship, feeling all of that and learning to execute under pressure, it all matters. But it starts with the scouts in the front office picking the right guys, and so (GM) Mike (Dunleavy) and his staff have been awesome.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified Pelicans governor Gayle Benson. The story has been corrected.