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Ohm Youngmisuk
Ohm Youngmisuk
ESPN Staff Writer
- Ohm Youngmisuk has covered the Giants, Jets and the NFL since 2006. Prior to that, he covered the Nets, Knicks and the NBA for nearly a decade. He joined ESPNNewYork.com after working at the New York Daily News for almost 12 years and is a graduate of Michigan State University.
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Nov 15, 2025, 09:47 AM ET
The New Orleans Pelicans have fired coach Willie Green after a 2-10 start to the season, the team announced Saturday.
Green was doomed by a miserable 0-6 start and injuries to his best players. Zion Williamson has played just five games due to a hamstring injury, an ailment he has suffered in four straight seasons.
The Pelicans were the first team in NBA history to lose three of their first six games by at least 30 points, after allowing at least 120 points in five straight games to begin a season for the first time in franchise history, according to ESPN Research.
TeamRecordWizards19-75Jazz21-73Pelicans23-71Hornets23-71— ESPN Research
New Orleans is on a four-game losing streak, including a 118-104 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday. The Pelicans are a bottom-five team in both offensive and defensive rating this season, according to ESPN Research.
Green was in his fifth season as Pelicans coach, and he finishes with a 150-190 record, including postseason appearances in 2021-22 and 2023-24.
“It really wasn’t the won-lost record as the ultimate determining factor. That was not it,” Pelicans executive vice president of basketball operations Joe Dumars said. “I was very clear from the very beginning, there was no mandate that you have to win a certain amount of games. There wasn’t even a mandate that, ‘Oh, you have to make the play-in or the playoffs.’ We have to establish who we’re going to be here in New Orleans going forward, and I just did not see that happening. And that was more than anything else what’s the determining factor here.”
Assistant James Borrego will become the interim coach for the Pelicans. Borrego, the former Charlotte Hornets coach, was a finalist for the Lakers and Cleveland Cavaliers head coaching jobs in 2024. The New York Knicks and Denver Nuggets also offered Borrego lead assistant jobs during the offseason, but he stayed in New Orleans.
Dumars said the plan is for Borrego to be the interim coach for the remainder of the season.
When Williamson is healthy, he can be a force. He is averaging 22.8 points, 6.8 rebounds, 4.6 assists and 2.0 steals per game this season. But he has been out since Nov. 4 after being limited to 30 and 29 games in two of the previous three seasons.
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Green also had to coach without Jordan Poole, who missed games with a left quad strain. And point guard Dejounte Murray remains out as he works his way back from a torn Achilles suffered at the end of January.
Dumars made several key moves in the offseason, such as the acquisitions of Poole and Kevon Looney.
The Pelicans have plenty of incentive to win games. They traded an unprotected 2026 first-round pick to the Atlanta Hawks on draft night for the No. 13 overall pick to select Derik Queen. While Queen has impressed with more playing time since early November and No. 7 overall pick Jeremiah Fears has started games and displayed potential, the pick sent to Atlanta could be a top pick in what is expected to be a draft containing potential franchise talent.
New Orleans also traded another 2026 first-rounder back to the Indiana Pacers to acquire the No. 23 pick in 2025. By moving both their own and the Pacers’ first-round picks, the Pelicans currently have no firsts in 2026.
Asked if he has any concern about not having a first-round pick, Dumars said: “There’s no sense in me being concerned about it now. It’s done. … I’m concerned about the guys we have here, the guys we drafted and watching them grow and the players they become. I am not sitting here worried about the pick that we don’t have.”
Dumars said all playing time and rotation decisions belong to Borrego and that he isn’t putting any requirements on the coach to play or start Fears and Queen.
“I said to him, ‘I am going to support whatever you want to do,'” Dumars said. “‘It’s your call. I’m not the coach. I am never going to be the coach. I never want to be the coach. It’s your call, James. However you want to go with this, I am going to support you 100 percent.’ I made that very clear to him this morning. … He doesn’t have a mandate from me that you have to play this guy or minutes, none of that.”
Green was hired by the Pelicans in 2021 off the Western Conference champion Phoenix Suns’ coaching staff as a well-regarded rising assistant in the league. Green’s best season was in 2023-24 when New Orleans won 49 games before being swept by the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round.
Green’s exit comes months after David Griffin was replaced by Dumars in April.
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