Exit Interviews - 2022-23 Season

Thread for exit interview content:



I'll be updating the thread with quotes for people who can't catch it, and if there's enough of interest left unquoted I'll do a transcript at some point.

13-year #NBA veteran Temple: "This is easily my favorite team to be around. That really bodes well for us in the future. The teams that play well have a lot of camaraderie and chemistry off the court." https://t.co/QkoK6yspvs

— Jim Eichenhofer (@Jim_Eichenhofer) April 14, 2023

Not strictly the exit stream, but still relevant.

Nance: The way I was moving in the Minnesota game I felt it was detrimental to the team to play vs OKC, says he obviously wanted to play but felt Jaxson did a great job #Pelicans

— Erin Summers (@ErinESummers) April 14, 2023

Garrett Temple says he hasn't put any thought into retiring this offseason. Said he'd like to return and be in the veteran leader role for this team again next season.

— Will Guillory (@WillGuillory) April 14, 2023

Nance: "A lot of highs, a lot of lows. All in all, I'm happy with the resilience of the group. Obviously it was a bit of a rollercoaster season for the organization and the fans and us." https://t.co/0FYYrXCz7g

— Jim Eichenhofer (@Jim_Eichenhofer) April 14, 2023

Larry: “There is a No. 1 seed in that locker room. Whether we can get on the court at the same time is the question.”

— Christian Clark (@cclark_13) April 14, 2023

Trey

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Next step is really just working on my game. This year was very informative on what I need to work on for next year. [...] definitely strength, that's one thing. Ballhandling once again, shooting off the move, just wanting to expand my game a little more.

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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae

Garrett Temple says he hasn't put any thought into retiring this offseason. Said he'd like to return and be in the veteran leader role for this team again next season.

— Will Guillory (@WillGuillory) April 14, 2023

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Then I hope he goes the Haslem route and takes a league minimum deal.

David Griffin said he looks at the season as two seasons, healthy and not #Pelicans

— Erin Summers (@ErinESummers) April 14, 2023

“If I’m a fan of this team I’m really disappointed”

-David Griffin

— Pro Pels Talk (@ProPelsTalk) April 14, 2023

Well, at least he knows

Griff says that fans have the right to be angry and ''p*ssed off'' and that he's glad this happened because if we had made the playoffs and win a few games we might have fooled ourselves into thinking we were ready, and we're clearly not.

Asked about injuries going on over years, he says that ''a lot of it is luck'' but that ''what happened this year'' was that ''when you miss that many guys for as long as we did, we ran the wheels off the bench guys''. Says it's no accident our core bench guys like Jose and Nance ended the year injured.

''What I don't want is for the narrative about our team to be that we have to fix the medical situation - we've got a lot of things to fix.''

Says that our margin for error was too small and it allowed medical issues to take over.

Griff says that Zion was ''never cleared to play basketball'' and that the idea of him ''choosing'' not to play was ''nonsense''. He was not physically injured but was not cleared to ''even play 3 on 3 full court, that's not where he was''.

Addressing the changes in the CBA and Zion's new cap hit as his contract starts, Griff says it's a learning process because the new CBA presents different issues compared to the old one. ''With all of the media accounts that are out there, you're led to believe the CBA might actually help teams that are in our position [...] and I hope that's true, once we can dive into it.''

Griff says he wants everyone to take a weekend off because ''when you have disappointment over every conversation'' you make worse decisions, and are slower to take responsibility.

Griff claims he thinks Willie ''navigated an incredibly difficult situation very very well'' and cites the players appreciating his calm in the chaos. Says he didn't realise how much he appreciated Willie Green's work until the season ended and he looked at the holistic picture of the injuries that Green had to deal with - mentions that because of the injuries, most of our practices were also hampered so the team didn't get as far with that as intended.

Says nobody is satisfied and we didn't win games we should have, but the fact that we still won more games this year than last is a testament to Willie Green's work. [note: I disagree with that]

Griff says that it's on his responsibility to improve our analytics department, which ''has got a lot to do'' before it reaches where he wants it to be. Says it's not why things didn't go right with the roster, but there's a lot of room to improve that aspect of our team.

Says that what we do there is ''going to change radically'' and that he wants to ''be in the forefront of that, and right now I would tell you that we haven't been.''

No BI or Zion, it seems?

Green was terrible. The fact that Griff can?t see that is a testament to the teams failure. Then again, I know he isn?t going to say that. It?s just annoying to constantly hear sugarcoating.

I would expect him to say something like that about Green publicly. We'll never know if he does more behind the scenes.

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Originally Posted by Fedupfan

Green was terrible. The fact that Griff can?t see that is a testament to the teams failure. Then again, I know he isn?t going to say that. It?s just annoying to constantly hear sugarcoating.

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He was asked about it, and he's not exactly going to stand there and say he thinks Green sucked, is he?

I've been harsh on Griff lately but I actually think today was relatively decent. I appreciate him saying that he gets why fans would be p****d off and disappointed, that they have a lot of work to do, and there needs to be change in all parts of the organisation. Would've been very easy for him to just blame injuries and say that outside of that we're fine.

Willie Green will not make this team a championship contender. He does not have the coaching accumen to make the necessary adjustments. Willie will get another season to be a ?players coach? with this roster. We will be slightly better but fall to a more veteran team in the playoffs. If Griff is smart, Green will then get fired and replaced by a Nick Nurse or Kenny Atkinson seaosoned veteran coach who is not past their prime like van gundy is/was.

This was the most candid David Griffin press conference I have ever watched.

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Originally Posted by Darkhorse985

This was the most candid David Griffin press conference I have ever watched.

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I agree, the first 5 minutes especially was about as straightforward as we've seen him. Some of the salesman leaked in towards the end.

Willie especially, I think understands what needs to happen with the offense. He said some really insightful stuff about shot profiles off camera that gives me confidence that they understand the changes that need to happen.

— Shamit Dua (@FearTheBrown) April 14, 2023

Apparently Green said some good stuff off camera that has created some optimism here

I thought a clear takeaway was that analytic analysis was not making its way on to the court or into the line ups, but that Green wasn?t to blame for this because of his limited options due to injuries.

I hope this means Griff will finally get serious about getting some professional shooters on the bench?three years too late.

No one asked about lack of rim protection.

No one asked about Jax or Kira.

?Griff, you mentioned how limited the roster was this year due to injuries, and yet two healthy lottery picks in Hayes and Lewis were glued to the end of the bench for most of the season. Did you agree with the decision not to play them and why is it they couldn?t find the court even after injuries to Jose and Larry??

Griff also said CJ was also playing with a torn labrum on shooting arm (same injury Brees had a few years ago, not as deep a tear obviously).

They kept it off the injury report so teams wouldn't target the injury.

Glad to see some accountability from the front office. Time to recalibrate and run it back with this core. Hoping for great health next season.

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Originally Posted by luckyman

Griff also said CJ was also playing with a torn labrum on shooting arm (same injury Brees had a few years ago, not as deep a tear obviously).

They kept it off the injury report so teams wouldn't target the injury.

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Torn labrum is also the injury that ended Anthony davis' 2015-16 season for us.

It's a rough one, for sure.

I feel like Cj played through that just to show Zion what it takes. Although, Cj was horrible most of the season.

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Originally Posted by Fedupfan

I feel like Cj played through that just to show Zion what it takes. Although, Cj was horrible most of the season.

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If ''what it takes'' is playing really poorly while potentially causing serious long-term damage by continually aggravating an existing injury in a way that might mean you're never the same, I'm hoping Zion ignores that lesson.

Luckily I don't think CJ is quite stupid enough for that.

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Originally Posted by Pelicanidae

If ''what it takes'' is playing really poorly while potentially causing serious long-term damage by continually aggravating an existing injury in a way that might mean you're never the same, I'm hoping Zion ignores that lesson.

Luckily I don't think CJ is quite stupid enough for that.

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Well he played through it so he may be that stupid. Lol.