Pelicans fire coach Willie Green 12 games into his fifth season, name James Borrego interim coach

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The New Orleans Pelicans fired coach Willie Green on Saturday on the heels of a 2-10 start to his fifth season in charge.

Pelicans Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations Joe Dumars, who announced the coaching change, named top assistant James Borrego, a former Charlotte Hornets head coach, as interim coach. The Pelicans next play at home on Sunday night against the Golden State Warriors.

“It really wasn’t the won and lost record as the ultimate determining factor,” Dumars said. “We have to establish who is going to be here in New Orleans going forward and I just did not see that happening.”

Rather, Dumars saw a team “losing the same way, over and over again.”

“That's not improvement,” he continued. “We have to establish that we're going to play hard every night. Before you can become anything in this league, you have to establish that first ... and that's still what I'm looking for right now.”

Team owner Gayle Benson, who has come under increasing public pressure during recent difficult seasons for both the Pelicans and the NFL's Saints, often spoke glowingly of Green and his family but said she trusted Dumars "to make the right decisions for our franchise.”

“I have tremendous admiration and respect for Willie Green, and I truly appreciate all he has done for our organization over the last few years," Benson said. “This is a tough business and these are difficult decisions."

Borrego was head coach of the Charlotte Hornets for four seasons from 2018 to 2022, going 138-163, including 43-39 in his final season. He also served as interim head coach with Orlando during the 2014-15 season.

“It's a tough day,” Borrego said. “I've been fired. Willie believed in me, trusted me, brought me in. ... We all own it. It's not just on him."

Dumars said he expects Borrego's promotion to last at least through the rest of this season but couldn't guarantee whether “unforeseen” circumstances might change that.

Borrego “has sat in the head-coaching seat before in the NBA and understands the job,” Dumars said. “So, we have great faith and confidence in James.”

Borrego noted that he's taking over with 70 games remaining in the regular season.

“There's a lot of basketball to be played here,” he said. “We have time to improve.

“We got to be a more resilient, tough physical group — period — whatever that looks like,” Borrego said. “It's just a very fluid situation right now.”

Green, hired to his first head coaching job in 2021 by former Pelicans basketball operations chief David Griffin, went 150-190 in four-plus seasons.

His Pelicans teams made the playoffs twice, losing in the first round to Phoenix in 2022 and Oklahoma City in 2024. The Pelicans qualified for the Western Conference play-in tournament in 2023 but were eliminated by Oklahoma City.

“Everybody here still has respect for Willie. So, it's not one of those things where you're happy to see somebody go,” wing Trey Murphy III said. “But we understand, too, that it's time to go with James Borrego.”

Green's job in New Orleans was made more challenging by star power forward Zion Williamson's frequent injury absences. Williamson — the 2019 first overall draft pick out of Duke who has averaged 24.6 points per game during his career — played in just 134, or about 39%, of the 340 regular season games Green coached — and none of the playoff games.

Williamson has missed seven games this season, hampered first by a bruised foot and then a strained left hamstring.

Dumars, hired to take over for Griffin this year, chose in the offseason to stick with Green, who was entering his final season under contract.

“I'd seen some of the Pelicans when they were fully healthy a few years ago and it seemed that Willy was doing a good job. I thought it was only fair to give him an opportunity,” Dumars said. “It was just as simple as: He's been here, give him a chance to have a fresh start with me.”

Dumars provided Green with a roster that included the additions of veterans Kevon Looney, Sadiq Bey and Jordan Poole, along with two first-round draft picks — Jeremiah Fears (seventh overall) and Derik Queen (13th overall).

The Pelicans opened the regular season with a six-game skid that included three 30-plus-point losses. Green briefly seemed to be finding his footing when the Pelicans won two straight, but they have since lost four in a row, including a 118-104 defeat at the hands of the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday night in NBA Cup play.

“We’re not status quo people. We’re just not,” Dumars said. “We can’t sit on our hands and we can’t sit here and go, ‘Well, it’s going to get better one day.’"

Although Borrego was in his third season on the Pelicans' staff, he said he expects to explore many potential changes now that he is in charge, perhaps even placing Queen in the starting lineup, given the rookie's greater-than-expected contributions early this season.

“If you put anybody in this seat, it's going to have a different feel and flavor,” Borrego said. "We're different human beings. We tick differently. We see the game a little bit differently.

“I could give you the same menu, but you're just going to use the menu differently, no matter who it is,” Borrego added. “You've got to put your imprint on it. You've got to be who you are — and I'm very comfortable with who I am.”

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New Orleans Pelicans head coach Willie Green calls out from the bench in the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Portland Trail Blazers, Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

New Orleans Pelicans head coach Willie Green talks to a player during the first half of an NBA basketball game against the Phoenix Suns Monday, Nov. 10, 2025, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

New Orleans Pelicans head coach Willie Green reacts from the bench in the second half of an NBA Cup basketball game against the Los Angeles Lakers, Friday, Nov. 14, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

New Orleans Pelicans head coach Willie Green reacts to an official in the second half of an NBA Cup basketball game against the Los Angeles Lakers, Friday, Nov. 14, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Alabama is forcing the committee that will set the College Football Playoff bracket to revisit an old question: Should a 12-team tournament to determine the national champion include a program with three losses?

And Duke is bringing up a new head-scratcher that nobody really thought of before: Could a team possibly make the playoff with five?

Those two mysteries were the main ones left after a day of shuffling in the conference title games set the stakes for Sunday’s big reveal.

Alabama’s 28-7 loss to CFP No. 3 Georgia and unranked Duke’s 27-20 win in overtime over CFP No. 16 Virginia were the key results Saturday — leaving the selection committee to sleep on which three teams out of five contenders vying for the final spots in the bracket are worthy, and which two stay home.

No. 9 Alabama (10-3), No. 10 Notre Dame (10-2) and No. 12 Miami (10-2) are in the hunt for two of those spots.

No. 25 James Madison (12-1) and Duke (8-5) — unranked but the newly crowned champion of the Atlantic Coast Conference — are the candidates for the other.

Normally, the sports world doesn’t start paying attention to Duke until hoops season reaches full swing. Maybe someone among the ever-present throng of Duke haters on social media would title this one: “Blue Devils ruin football, too!”

Duke’s win gives the ACC a champion with five losses, which places the conference on the cusp of not placing a single team into the tournament.

Blue Devils coach Manny Diaz is more than fine with comparing his team to James Madison.

“They don’t have a win like this. They don’t have a win against a team like that. That’s a big-time team right there in Virginia,” he said. “Seven wins in this conference? Seven Power Four wins compared to zero? No, that’s a playoff team. These guys deserve to be in.”

It is true that Duke’s strength of schedule is about 50 spots higher than James Madison’s. But in most of the rest of the metrics — including that all-important loss column — the Dukes of James Madison look much stronger than Duke.

This is how the ACC got into this pickle:

— No. 20 Tulane won the American Conference.

— The No. 25 Dukes won the Sun Belt.

— The unranked Blue Devils beat Virginia.

CFP rules call for the five best-ranked conference titlists to earn automatic spots in the 12-team bracket. Four of those spots, or so the thinking went, were supposed to go to the Power Four conferences. But that’s not what the rules say, and so, it comes down to whether the committee ranks Duke ahead of James Madison to keep the unthinkable from happening.

Because two teams from outside the top 25 won their conferences and will receive automatic bids, it means the top 10 teams — not 12 — from Sunday's rankings will make the playoffs.

Heading into Saturday, one thought was that the committee placed Alabama at No. 9 last week, flip-flopping it with Notre Dame, so that if the Crimson Tide lost, there would still be room to slip them into the playoff, even with that 10-3 record.

The ugliness of Saturday's loss — a 21-point beatdown that looked worse at times — might change that calculus.

Crimson Tide coach Kalen DeBoer is leaning on the idea that a team shouldn’t be penalized for playing in its conference title game.

“How that can can hurt you and keep you out of the playoff?” he said.

Last year, Alabama was the odd man out after being idle on championship Saturday, but watching SMU slide in ahead of it after — what else? — a loss in its conference title game. But that loss was close. Alabama's wasn't.

Notre Dame and Miami, which were idle Saturday, are looking at other things.

Irish coach Marcus Freeman is leaning on the argument that the real comparison should be between his team and Alabama — not between Notre Dame and BYU or Notre Dame and Miami. He wants nothing to do with that Miami comparison, because the Irish lost to the Hurricanes in Week 1.

Committee chair Hunter Yurachek has been opaque, at best, about how the committee judges that result.

One possibility Sunday is that, thanks to No. 11 BYU's lopsided loss to Texas Tech, Notre Dame and Miami could be scrunched right next to each other in the rankings. That, some believe, would make it almost impossible to ignore the head-to-head matchup.

That’s what Miami coach Mario Cristobal is banking on.

“Same record. Identical metrics and then, again, Miami beats Notre Dame,” he said.

The game pitting the two best teams in the country didn't have much impact on anything regarding playoff seeding.

No. 2 Indiana beat No. 1 Ohio State 13-10 in a thrilling, defensive slugfest that will make the Hoosiers — yes, the Indiana Hoosiers — the top team in the country heading into the playoff.

All the discourse about Alabama and the meaning of title games aside, it would be hard to see Ohio State dropping below the No. 4 spot and forfeiting the first-round bye that goes to the top four.

Maybe the committee places the Buckeyes at 2 or 3 to at least keep alive the tantalizing prospect of a rematch in the national final on Jan. 19.

Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here and here (AP News mobile app). AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football

Alabama head coach Kalen Deboer speaks to an official during the first half of a Southeastern Conference championship NCAA college football game between Georgia and Alabama, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Georgia defensive back Daylen Everette (6) runs an intercepted ball against Alabama wide receiver Germie Bernard (5) during the first half of a Southeastern Conference championship NCAA college football game, Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)