But smash-cut to today, and the Pelicans are not only staring up from the bottom quarter of the NBA standings but also trying to gain a grip on the New Orleans public, which has wandered off amid disappointing results.
“It’s hard to watch sometimes,” Pelicans fan Jay Landry said Wednesday. “I know everything was supposed to be better with (DeMarcus Cousins) here, but it’s hard to come here and watch the team lose all of the time.”
And the franchise, which has won just one playoff series since arriving in New Orleans 15 years ago, is keenly aware that support starts on the scoreboard.
“We’re not winning,” Lauscha said in early February. “We’re not oblivious to what’s happening. Our expectation has always been to be in the playoffs and win championships. That’s the expectation. We aren’t meeting that expectation, and we understand our fans aren’t happy. Hell, we aren’t happy.
“We have 125 people who work on the staff of the New Orleans Pelicans, and they aren’t happy. They are real people who go out in the world and hear what people say. They know what’s going on. We aren’t happy and accepting of this. We are trying to improve as best we can.”
Still, Lauscha said the team is distributing more than 16,000 tickets per game, which is nearly 95 percent of the Smoothie King Center’s official capacity. Vice president of ticket sales Mike Stanfield said the team is among the NBA leaders in group sales as well.
But those no-shows, occasionally creating completely empty sections, are impossible to ignore.
“What we have to ask is, ‘Why aren’t people showing up?’ ” Lauscha said. “I’m not naïve to think it’s because the on-court performance isn’t what it needs to be. We are not blind to that. We talk about how we can improve that.”
Dennis Lauscha promising changes in future?
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Originally Posted by tthier2
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