Pelicans reportedly hiring Jamahl Mosley as head coach: What can he do with Zion Williamson, Derik Queen?

The New Orleans Pelicans are hiring former Orlando Magic coach Jamahl Mosley as their next head coach, according to ESPN. The Pelicans surprisingly brought former head coach Willie Green into the season despite changing front offices last offseason. He lasted just 12 games before getting replaced by assistant James Borrego on an interim basis.

From the moment Green was fired, New Orleans' interest in Mosley has been well-known. Jake Fischer reported on that interest all the way back in November, when Mosley was still coaching a Magic team that harbored real playoff ambitions. The Magic almost upset the No. 1-seeded Detroit Pistons in the first round of the postseason, but lost the last three games of the series without star forward Franz Wagner. Mosley was fired after the elimination, but his Orlando tenure apparently caught the eye of the Pelicans for what he was able to achieve defensively.

"The Pelicans believe the franchise is at a point similar to Mosley's leadership and development plan when he took over the rebuilding Magic in 2021 after a 21-win season," according to ESPN. 

Though Orlando fell off defensively this season, primarily because of injuries, the Magic had top-five defenses in both the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons under Mosley's watch. That defense, at least until Wagner got hurt, smothered the Pistons in the first four games of their first-round series. The Pelicans, on the other hand, ranked 23rd in defense this season, but that's not saying much since the seven teams above them were tanking and New Orleans didn't control its own first-round pick. Before the All-Star break, when the tanking was less egregious, the Pelicans ranked 27th in defense, and outside of Herb Jones, the defensive personnel here isn't especially inspiring.

It's further complicated by the messy fit between two of the most important players in the organization: Derik Queen and Zion Williamson. The two function very similarly on the court as ball-handling bigs who don't protect the rim. The Pelicans allowed 122.8 points per 100 possessions with the two of them on the floor, good for only the 12th percentile in defensive efficiency, according to Cleaning the Glass.

Their offensive fit poses just as many problems. Neither shoots 3s, and Jones fell off significantly on that front this season. New Orleans ranked 26th in the NBA in 3-point attempt rate, making it harder to generate space for either Williamson or Queen to score near the basket. Rookie point guard Jeremiah Fears is dealing with similar issues. He's at his best attacking downhill, but the limited shooting here only makes that harder.

These were issues Mosley struggled with in Orlando. Most of his tenure was defined by the questionable fit between Wagner and Paolo Banchero as big ball-handlers who don't really shoot, and therefore struggled to amplify one another. The Magic always seemed to function a bit more comfortably with only one of them on the floor, but their youth and upside made trading one of them risky. Queen is substantially younger than Williamson, and while the Pelicans have indicated at every turn that they plan to keep both, rumors will persist so long as these fit issues do.

The Pelicans are still operating with enough of an asset surplus to make substantial changes. Though they infamously gave up their unprotected pick in this year's strong draft to get Queen, they control all of their own first-round picks moving forward. They will get the better of their own pick and Milwaukee's next season, and could actually keep both if they both land in the top four. They're flirting with next season's luxury tax already and will almost certainly avoid it, but their long-term books are fairly clean. Williamson's contract includes a host of partial guarantees, Murphy and Jones signed team-friendly extensions, and Fears and Queen still have three years left on their rookie deals. There is room here to maneuver.

But until the Pelicans settle on a more coherent plan for their roster, Mosley is going to have his work cut out for him. Skill set redundancy and archaic priorities doomed him in Orlando. No culture, no amount of defensive intensity can overcome a roster full of players who, thus far, have shown little ability to amplify one another. Mosley's New Orleans tenure will ultimately be defined by how effectively the front office addresses these problems and how much more creatively he can deploy his new players than he did in Orlando.