Willie Green's standing is secure, but a Pelicans playoff run would help (2024)

Zion Williamson looked unstoppable during Tuesday's Play-In Tournament opener against the Los Angeles Lakers — a 110-106 loss — until the New Orleans Pelicans star's monster night ended early. He exited in the final minutes of the matchup with what Pelicans coach Willie Green later described as left leg soreness.

After the game, Williamson walked out of Smoothie King Center without any apparent mobility issues. He didn't have a visible wrap on his leg either.

Green said Williamson will get imaging on his leg Wednesday. Green added that he didn't see if it was a knee or a foot Williamson injured.

While Willie Green was hired in July 2021, league sources say Green has multiple years remaining on an extension that had not been previously reported.

The contract revelation above tells you all you need to know about Green's standing in New Orleans, as he remains the organization’s choice to lead this talented Pelicans group that has so much promise. In terms of the bigger picture, it matters a great deal that there has been progress for a third consecutive season — from 36 wins in his rookie head coaching campaign to 42 to 49 this season. Still, this postseason is pivotal when it comes to the Pelicans knowing what to make of this pricey core. Green’s ability to get the best out of this group that shows flashes of brilliance is vital.

Zion Williamson's second-half surge is the most important development, with the 23-year-old playing the best basketball of his underwhelming (and injury-riddled) career these past few months. He's signed through the 2027-28 season, when his salary tops out at $44.8 million. Yet as our Mike Vorkunov reported in December, the deal is no longer guaranteed for the final three seasons because of Williamson’s inability to meet a condition of the contract last season relating to games played (he missed 53 in all).

CJ McCollum is signed through 2025-26 ($30.6 million that season). The next key negotiation involves Brandon Ingram, whose deal expires after next season ($36 million) and who plans on discussing an extension with New Orleans this summer. If the Pels can survive the Play-In, which starts with them hosting the Lakers on Tuesday night, winning a playoff series or two would go a long way toward crystallizing this pricey plan.

Read my primer on the 20 coaches in the postseason here.

For a few days in early January, it looked like Darvin Ham might be fired midway through his second season. A significant portion of the Lakers' locker room was known to be unhappy with the state of affairs on that front, so the predictable (and fair) questions began about what it would all mean.

But then, as is often the case when it comes to pro sports, we were reminded that the owner's voice matters above all else. Lakers owner Jeanie Buss is a known proponent of Ham and even sent him a long text message of support in the wake of the initial report about his situation. And so, in essence, they all moved on.

Four months later, with the Lakers having recovered from their 17-19 start to win 30 of 46 games since then, one would think Ham would be out of harm's way. But the best way for Ham to avoid being the fall guy here is to lead the Lakers on the kind of run they pulled off last time around. Their latest Play-In journey starts Tuesday night in New Orleans, where the Lakers face the Pelicans team they beat three out of four times this season (including 124-108 in the regular-season finale on Sunday that played a pivotal part in the seventh-through-10th standings).

Yet regardless of how this latest Lakers postseason ends, the future of LeBron James in Laker Land will loom large over all of their offseason business — Ham included. The 39-year-old has a player option for next season worth $51.4 million, but it appears far more likely that he'll opt out and pursue the three-year, $162 million deal that the Lakers would be able to give him.

Read my primer on the 20 coaches in the postseason here.

It's hard to recall a season where a player has made such a defensive transformation as Zion Willamson has this season. Since he was drafted in 2019, he has been a defensive liability for the Pelicans.

Williamson has shown flashes of good defensive instincts, but nothing like the blocks or defensive commitment he gave at Duke. He was volleyball-spiking shots like you and I do on a NERF rim.

But Williamson’s effort reached a crisis against the Los Angeles Lakers in the In-Season Tournament final four. He looked disinterested and out of shape.

Then something changed for Williamson; it's as if a switch was flipped. After the All-Star break, Williamson was showing the effort. He went from making one defensive play to multiple ones on the same possession.

The numbers show it. After the All-Star break, the Pelicans' defensive rating improved to 106.9 with him on the floor.

As impressive as the numbers have been, it’s worth noting who Williamson is guarding, too. He matches up against the opponent's top options and holds his own.

Read the rest of my breakdown here.

LOS ANGELES — No one remembers what exactly spurred the change.

Perhaps it was D'Angelo Russell breaking out as one of the league's top shooters. Perhaps the group just needed time to fully grasp the five-out schemes coach Darvin Ham implemented in training camp. Perhaps it began with starting Rui Hachimura and leaning more on the core players from last season's postseason run. Perhaps the players needed to hash things out after a rough stretch in mid-to-late December and early January. Perhaps it's some combination of all of the above.

But whatever the reason, the Lakers’ offensive turnaround in early January has given them a legitimate chance to not only make the playoffs, but go on a similar run to last season’s, when they made the Western Conference finals as the No. 7 seed.

And it’s their offense, which ranks third in the NBA in points scored per 100 possessions since Jan. 7, that has turned their season around.

Read the rest of my story from April 7 here.

The Lakers' injury report lists Anthony Davis as questionable with back spasms. (He insisted he would play Tuesday after suffering the injury in the closing minutes of Sunday's game).

LeBron James is probable with left ankle peroneal tendinopathy.

Jalen Hood-Schifino (back), Jarred Vanderbilt (foot) and Christian Wood (knee) are all out.

Very few people in the NBA evoke emotional responses like Zion Williamson. He's been the cause behind fights on the court, on social media and with the officials — and that's just in the past week.

Williamson’s biggest supporters call him the savior of basketball in New Orleans. His biggest critics view him as the personification of wasted potential.

Through the first five years of his career, the noise has centered around everything except what Williamson cares about most: basketball. He’s certainly contributed to it with the off-court drama he’s worked through and the myriad injuries that have kept him out of uniform.

But this season has been different. He’s been (mostly) healthy, playing in 70 of the Pelicans' 82 games. He's bought into the culture the Pelicans are trying to build. He’s said all the right things away from the court.

The irony is that, just as he's done everything in his power to actually play basketball consistently, some of the attention he's dealt with since high school has faded away.

Read the rest of my story from March 1.

In this episode of "Buha's Block," I preview the Play-In game between the No. 8 Los Angeles Lakers and the No. 7 New Orleans Pelicans at Smoothie King Center.

I go through additional notes from the regular-season finale, the season series numbers between the two teams, five adjustments for the Lakers, five adjustments for the Pelicans and a matchup prediction, among other topics.

NEW ORLEANS — Sunday's regular-season finale was supposed to be a coronation for the New Orleans Pelicans.

They were returning home after four crucial road wins that allowed them to control their playoff destiny heading into their final game. A win over the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday would've given the Pelicans:

• Their first five-game winning streak of the season.
• The No. 6 seed in the Western Conference and a guaranteed spot in the playoffs.
• The second 50-win season in franchise history.

In addition, it was Brandon Ingram’s first game back in the lineup after missing the previous 12 with a knee injury — not to mention the animosity that’s in the building anytime Anthony Davis visits his old stomping grounds at Smoothie King Center.

The stage was set for New Orleans to earn a statement win. Instead, the Lakers blitzed them from the start, built a 32-point lead and cruised to a 124-108 victory. Considering the stakes and the anticipation coming into the game, it may have been the Pels' most disastrous performance of the season.

Read more here.

The signs of a locked-in Lakers squad were present in the locker room before Sunday's game. There was little interaction between players. Everyone was either listening to their music with headphones on, watching film on laptops or iPads or vibing to the old-school Lil Wayne playlist blaring through the speakers.

Lakers head coach Darvin Ham said he noticed a renewed sense of focus on Saturday when the team gathered to rewatch the film of Friday's 123-120 win over a Memphis Grizzlies team that was missing 13 roster players. The group was disappointed with the effort, including numerous careless turnovers and halfhearted defensive rotations. The Lakers felt a sense of urgency with seeding on the line.

"We wanted to come out early and set a tone defensively," Ham said of the team'' mindset coming off the Grizzlies nailbiter. "And also set a tone offensively by not settling."

LeBron James applied the pregame messaging early. He relentlessly pushed the ball, hunting mismatches and openings out of pick-and-rolls while surgically dissecting the Pelicans' sixth-ranked defense. Lasers, lobs, touch passes, bounce passes — James' full passing arsenal was on display. Each member of New Orleans' army of wing defenders was too small and slender to handle James' force, physicality and savvy.

He helped spark noteworthy performances from Anthony Davis (30 points on 13-for-17 shooting, 11 rebounds), Reaves (20 points), D’Angelo Russell (19 points, five 3s) and Rui Hachimura (11 points, 7 rebounds), as the Lakers leaned more into their starting five with the playoffs potentially less than a week away.

"I just read the game and I was just finding my teammates and I just tried to put the ball on time and on target for either jump shots or guys at the rim," James said. "I just tried to be very efficient with my play."

Read more from Sunday's game here.

In a rematch of a game played in the same arena on Sunday afternoon, the Pelicans may come into this one with greater motivation than their flat effort in Game 82. That said, this feels like a bad matchup for them – they lost three of the four meetings with L.A. in the regular season and were trounced in all three defeats, including an embarrassing 133-89 loss in Las Vegas in the In-Season Tournament Semifinals.

The Pels have Brandon Ingram back after he missed 12 games with a left knee contusion; Sunday was his first game since March 21. The Lakers, on the other hand, have to cross their fingers for Anthony Davis after the big man left Sunday’s game with hip and back spasms.

Fun fact: The Lakers outscore opponents by 3.2 points per 100 possessions with Davis and LeBron James on the court this year … the exact same margin by which the Pels prevailed with Ingram and Zion Williamson on the floor together. Despite the scores of the first four meetings, I suspect this one will be close. I also think that somehow, some way, the Pelicans' superior depth comes to bear and, with the help of the home crowd, they end up squeaking this one out.

Pick: Pelicans

A little more than 48 hours ago, the Los Angeles Lakers (47-35) traveled to face the New Orleans Pelicans (49-33) in a game with massive stakes. Now, the two teams will run it back to begin the 2024 NBA Play-In Tournament. The winner will be the No. 7 seed and face the defending champion Denver Nuggets in the first round of the NBA Playoffs. The loser will host the winner of the game between the Golden State Warriors and Sacramento Kings for the right to face the West's top seed, the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Led by LeBron James' triple double, the Lakers defeated the Pelicans 124-108 Sunday to jump up to the eighth spot in the standings and drop the Pelicans below the Phoenix Suns in the race for the sixth and final guaranteed playoff slot. It was the third Lakers victory in four head-to-head matchups between these teams this season, a tally that includes a 44-point LA rout in December in the semifinals of the In-Season Tournament.

The game begins at 7 p.m. ET and will be televised on TNT and WatchTNT.

More information:

• Lineups, box score and game page.
• John Hollinger's 2024 NBA Playoffs guide.

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