NEW ORLEANS — The New Orleans Pelicans up and down season came to a close Wednesday night on Friday, the team held their end-of-season media availability, and Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations, David Griffin, spoke at length about the team's future.
"If I'm a fan and David Griffin comes back up here next year and says, yeah, you know we just gotta get better, I'm gonna be pissed off. We've gotta get better right now. We've gotta learn from everything we didn't do properly and make that mean something," Griffin said.
Although the team won more games than they did last year, this season will be remembered by most fans as a disappointment.
"I'm really, really Grateful we didn't trick this up, find a way to win 50 games and win one round of the playoffs and convince ourselves were better than we are. We didn't set false expectations for ourselves. We are not good enough right now, and we know it," Griffin said.
At one point, the Pelicans were at the top of the Western Conference before plummeting to the bottom of the standings.
"The core and the nucleus we have here is very, very good," Griffin said.
Griffin believes in the roster and thinks the rest of the NBA does too.
"27 teams would trade their roster for ours and our draft picks for theirs," Griffin said.
Injuries were a major reason the team struggled during the second half of the season. Stars Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram combined to appear in 74 games. Williamson only played in just 29 games and didn't touch the floor again after leaving a January 2nd game with a hamstring injury.
Prior to the injury, Williamson averaged 26 points, 7 rebounds, and 4.6 assists per game.
Ingram only played in 45 games, but he did lead the team's late-season push to clinch a spot in the Play-In Tournament.
With so many players missing time, the Pelicans' medical team has been questioned. When asked about the organization's medical, Griffin said, "What I don't want the narrative to be about our team is, oh my god, they have to fix the medical situation. We have to fix a lot of stuff. We got to do a whole bunch of things better. That's just a part of it," Griffin said.
Trey Murphy's improvement this season was one bright spot.
Murphy played in 79 games and started 65 of those. He averaged 14.5 points, 2.5 threes made, and 3.6 rebounds per game. The second-year pro scored over 30 points three times.
"His [Murphy] growth is absurd. I'm just happy for him," Griffin said.
Griffin also spoke about Williamson being critiqued for not returning.
"It's been a lot put on him. That's not fair. some of it his own doing," Griffin said.
Earlier this week, Williamson said during a press conference he would be ready to play “when I feel like Zion again.” Williamson also stated that he was "physically fine," but the mental aspect of trusting the strength in his hamstring was holding him back from returning.
"Physically, I'm fine means im not currently injured. He wasn't physically cleared to play basketball. He was playing one-on-none. He went up, and Windmill dunked pregame. That's not the skillset that makes you capable of playing skilled five-on-five basketball. He was never cleared to play five-on-five basketball," Griffin said.
The Pelicans head into the offense with Jaxson Hayes and Josh Richardson as free agents and likely the 14th pick in the NBA Draft.
Towards the end of his presser, Griffin had a message to fans that were disappointed about this season, "The message would just be we're moving in the right direction. We may not be moving there as quickly as you would like it to happen, but as long as we grow from what we learn, nothing is fatal.
Griffin still believes the future is bright in New Orleans. Health and patience will be key.
"This only gets bad if you try to go too far too fast and put yourself in a position you can't get out of financially. we are really really well positioned," Griffin said
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