Pelicans counting on Willie Green’s personal qualities trumping lack of experience

Willie Green doesn’t have any head-coaching experience.

He doesn’t claim to have secret Xs and Os insight that separates him from other coaches.

He doesn’t turn 40 years old until Wednesday.

The New Orleans Pelicans’ new head coach doesn’t arrive with a lengthy coaching resume as his two immediate predecessors did.

And that was the point coming out of Green’s introductory news conference Tuesday at the Ochsner Sports Performance Center.

Green belongs to a younger generation than the man he replaced (Stan Van Gundy) and the man that Van Gundy replaced (Alvin Gentry).

His 12-year NBA playing career, which included one season (2010-11) with the New Orleans Hornets, ended just six years ago. That’s 12 years after Van Gundy started his first NBA head-coaching job and 21 years after Gentry started his first NBA head-coaching job.

Green said his experience as a player and as an assistant coach under Golden State coach Steve Kerr and Phoenix and former New Orleans coach Monty Williams showed him that the best coaches are not the best coaches because of superior knowledge of Xs and Os.

More importantly, Green said, they convey to their players that “they care about you,” they’re exceptional teachers and they “connect” with their players. They demonstrate to their players that they have “a lot more in common than they don’t.”

“It’s easier to get people to reach their max when they know you care about them,” Green said.

General manager Trajan Langdon cited Green’s skill in delivering coaching and teaching lessons that are easily understood, embraced and absorbed by players.

The irony about Green’s hiring is that he comes across as a younger version of Williams, whom the Pelicans fired six years ago after he led the team into the playoffs for the second time in his five seasons.

“Monty means the world to me,” Green said.

Williams, like Green, had not been a head coach before coming to New Orleans.

Green called Williams “a true leader” as well as “a friend and a brother.” He said he was “so grateful” for having learned under Williams, who he said took him “under his wing and helped me grow as a coach, a person, a man, a father and a husband.”

Owner Gayle Benson said the organization still has “tremendous respect and admiration for Monty Williams.”

Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations David Griffin wasn’t responsible for the dismissal of Williams, who with Green at his side led Phoenix to the NBA Finals that concluded last week. But Griffin was responsible for extending Gentry shortly after arriving two years ago, firing him a year later, hiring Van Gundy and firing him after one season.

When he arrived, Griffin could have fired Gentry with one year left on his contract after missing the playoffs three times in four seasons. When he sought Gentry’s successor a year later he could have hired someone like Green instead of Van Gundy, who was two years removed from an unsuccessful four-year tenure in Detroit.

“Unfortunately we’re getting experienced (at hiring coaches),” Griffin said. “Let’s hope we’re done for a while.”

Griffin called the Pelicans “a sleeping giant” primarily because of the presence of Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram.

He called the hiring of Green the first in “a tapestry of moves” to come this off-season. Reportedly the Pelicans have a deal in place to acquire Jonas Valanciunas in a trade with Memphis, though Griffin couldn’t comment on that Tuesday because the deal can’t be finalized until next month.

Green called his return to New Orleans, which he said made a lasting impression on him and his then-bride during his one season here, “the right fit.”

The last two times the Pelicans hired a head coach each man had a lengthy track record as a head coach.

Both failed in New Orleans.

Griffin said it became “almost a joke” for him and Langdon that whenever they talked to a general manager who had completed a coaching search or to a head coach about an assistant who was a candidate, they would routinely be asked, “Have you talked to Willie Green?”

The point, of course, was that there was a league-wide belief that Green was worthy of serious consideration as a head-coaching candidate. It’s fair to also note that none of those GMs had chosen to hire Green and none of those recommendations from head coaches had led to Green being hired until New Orleans came along.

And that’s Green’s hiring in a nutshell.

His youthfulness and lack of head-coaching experience are worthy of pause, but he possesses personal qualities that – at least in the Pelicans’ evaluation – are more important.