Key moments that defined Pelicans’ evolution

METAIRIE – The New Orleans Pelicans had an eventful 2021-22 season.

It started in training camp last September under the guidance of first-year head coach Willie Green, the team’s third coach in as many seasons.

Training camp began with the revelation that star forward Zion Williamson had undergone foot surgery in the summer but was expected to be ready to start the regular season.

But Williamson never did play and the Pelicans were as bad as any team in the NBA during the first quarter of the season.

The team gradually got a little better, made a major trade in February, kept getting better, made the play-in tournament, advanced to the playoffs and battled the best team in the NBA for six games before seeing its season end last week.

Along the way the crowds got bigger and louder as the Crescent City and its basketball team rekindled their passion for one another.

The evolution of the Pelicans was one of the best stories in the NBA.

And all signs point to that evolution being the start of a basketball renaissance in New Orleans.

Here are 10 memorable moments from the Pelicans season – developments that helped redefine this season and this organization’s future.

1. Williamson’s absence and the team’s slow start
When Green was hired as head coach he started building his team around two young stars – Williamson and fellow forward Brandon Ingram.

Green has yet to coach Williamson in a game and yet his program ultimately had a surprisingly good first year.

The absence of Williamson and the inevitable growing pains for a rookie head coach and a roster of young players largely unfamiliar with one another triggered a terrible start. The Pelicans were 1-12, then 3-16.

Then they went 33-30.

“We definitely came a long way,” Ingram said.

The absence of Williamson and the poor start could have doomed the season. But the resiliency of Green and his team was instead the foundation for a successful season.

2. Putting Herbert Jones Jr. in the starting lineup for good
The second-round draft choice from Alabama was impressive from the time he arrived.

He missed three of the first 19 games of the season due to injury, but started games two through eight, partly because Ingram was sidelined for the last two of those games.

Jones came off the bench for eight straight games before Green re-inserted him into the starting lineup for Game 20 – and Jones stayed there the rest of the year and became one of the top rookies in the NBA.

“Ya’ll were late on Herb,” guard Kira Lewis Jr., a college teammate of Jones’, told reporters the day after the season ended. “I been telling ya’ll about Herb. Ya’ll got to see it, but I’ve been seeing that since college.”

3. Devonte’ Graham’s game-winning shots
It took New Orleans a long time to gradually climb out of that early season hole. And it might never have done it if not for a couple of last-second, game-winning 3-pointers by Graham.

“Just great shots,” Graham said proudly last week.

On November 26, Graham took a pass from Ingram and swished a jumper from just beyond the arc with 1.3 seconds left to turn an apparent loss into a 98-97 win at Utah.

Just 19 days later the Pelicans seemed headed to overtime in Oklahoma City until Graham beat the fourth-quarter buzzer by releasing a 61-foot shot that banked in for a 113-110 victory.

“That one was crazy,” Graham said. “I still don’t know how I made that.”

The ninth-place Pelicans would go on to finish two games ahead of San Antonio for home-court in the first round of the play-in tournament and three games ahead of the 11th-place Lakers.

If Graham hadn’t salvaged those two nail-biters there would have been even more nail-biting down the stretch of the regular season than there was.

4. Acquiring CJ McCollum and changing the starting lineup
The Pelicans acquired CJ McCollum, Larry Nance Jr. and Tony Snell from Portland for Josh Hart, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and other considerations.

Initially, McCollum started alongside Graham in the backcourt, but after just four games, Green wisely moved McCollum from shooting guard to point guard, slid Graham to the bench and inserted Jaxson Hayes into the starting lineup at forward.

The Pelicans immediately became a more dangerous team and McCollum assumed Williamson’s projected role as Ingram’s co-leader.

“He was exactly what we needed in every way on and off the court,” general manager David Griffin said of McCollum. “Larry was the same.”

Nance underwent arthroscopic knee surgery shortly after the trade and played in just nine regular-season games, but proved to be very valuable as a backup in multiple frontcourt roles and as a leader.

“I just tried to give the team whatever I thought they needed on any given night,” Nance said. “I was just thrilled to be able to play and the playoff run was just icing on the cake.”

As for Hayes, his emergence as a power forward after two seasons as a center was a revelation and a bit of a fluke.

Initially Green put the 6-foot-11 Hayes in the lineup next to 6-11 center Jonas Valanciunas out of necessity for a January 31 game at Cleveland because the Cavaliers started an unusually tall frontcourt.

Hayes didn’t play in 12 of the first 32 games and didn’t start in the first 50, but he played so well (19 points on nine of nine shooting) in that first start that he earned two more starts. He wound up averaging 30 minutes, 15.7 points and 8.3 rebounds in the three starts.

Green brought Hayes off the bench for five of the next six games before settling on the lineup featuring McCollum and Hayes (along with Ingram, Valanciunas and Jones), which wound up being the default starting lineup during the playoff run.

Hayes was proud to be Green’s “X factor.”

5. Four-game win streak right out of the All-Star Break
McCollum had been on board for five games, the last of which was his first start in the last game before the break.

When the Pelicans came out of the break they looked like a different team, winning on the road against the Suns and the Lakers before winning home games against the Kings and the Jazz. Their smallest margin of victory was 15 points and their average margin of victory was 26.8 points.

6. Ingram’s return and comeback to beat the Lakers
The Pelicans continued their climb into the thick of the play-in race with seven games remaining before hosting the Spurs and the Lakers

After the Pelicans lost to the Spurs as Ingram missed his 10th consecutive game because of a hamstring strain, Ingram returned the next night and helped New Orleans overcome a 23-point deficit and beat L.A. 116-108.

Jones said the key to the Pelicans’ relentlessness was “just showing up every day to get better regardless of what happened before that.”

7. 3-1 road trip ends with a play-in berth
After beating the Lakers, the Pelicans embarked on a four-game road trip, which started with a victory against McCollum’s former team. Then the Pelicans all but finished off the Lakers with a 114-111 win.

After a loss to the Clippers, New Orleans clinched a play-in berth with a win at Sacramento. Two days later the Pelicans were back in the Smoothie King Center beating the Blazers and two days after that they clinched home-court for the play-in opener when the Spurs lost to Golden State.

8. Beating the Spurs in a play-in game
The Smoothie King Center was packed on April 13 when the Pelicans beat San Antonio 113-103 in an elimination game.

“As a young team we need those games, important games, elimination games,” Valanciunas said. “That’s how you build your experience and get that important-game taste.”

9. Green’s “You gotta fight” pep talk in second play-in game win
The Pelicans played another elimination game at the Clippers two nights later. They trailed by 10 points at the end of the third quarter as Green gathered his thoughts before entering the huddle to talk to his players.

“I was walking down the sideline and a bit of doubt crept into my mind,” Green said. “I was like, ‘man, we had a good season.’ Then I had to quickly flip it. I thought, ‘if I’m thinking like that, what are they thinking?’ I needed to go in the huddle and just be honest about where we are and what we have to fight for.

“That’s what it was – everything flashing before me, the season, the one and whatever start, the injuries, the talks, but we continued to believe in each other. I needed them to understand that we can win but we have to do it the way we’ve been doing it all season.”

They fought back to win 105-101, claim the eighth seed in the playoffs and they were off to Phoenix.

The clip of Green’s speech went viral and became a regular feature at home games during the playoffs.

10. Taking the top-seeded Suns to six games
The Pelicans lost Game 1, but stunned the Suns in Game 2 to briefly grab home-court advantage.

Phoenix regained home-court with a victory in Game 3 in the SKC, but the Pelicans evened the series in the same building.

The Suns won Game 5 at home and ended the Pelicans’ season with a 115-109 victory two nights later.

The outcome was especially disappointing because the Pelicans led by 10 points at halftime and by three points at the end of three quarters.

But the sellout crowd at the SKC stayed to offer a series of standing ovations to the team at the end, appreciative of how far this team and come and just how good and entertaining it had become.

“We were playing really good ball (down the stretch),” Valanciunas said.

“I believe this is the start of something special,” Green said.