New Orleans Pelicans head coach Alvin Gentry held a conference call with local media on Thursday to discuss the possibility of the current NBA season returning and the state of the team before the season was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gentry is a member of a NBA sub-committee that is currently exploring ways to resume the season and told the media they are hoping they have the chance to do so.
“I don’t know what it’s going to look like when we do get back out playing. That’s something that’s continually being worked on and talked about, starting in the league office,” Gentry told pelicans.com. “We don’t have any indication of how that will look and what it will be. We’re just hoping that we have that opportunity.”
The Athletic’s Shams Charania reported on Wednesday that Orlando could be a possible location for the NBA to finish the season.
However, CNBC’s Jabari Young reported that NBA team executives and agents are calling for the NBA season to be cancelled.
“Team executives are starting to feel the pressure, frustrated with the lack of information from the league and pushing for an outright cancellation of the season so everyone can focus on safely resuming play next season,” Young wrote in his latest article.
This prompted Los Angeles Laker LeBron James to release the following tweet:
While the NBA works on resuming the season, Gentry discussed the turnaround that he saw from the Pelicans.
New Orleans started the season 7-23 through their first 30 games, but they climbed back to within 3.5 games of the Memphis Grizzlies for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference.
Gentry said the Christmas road trip was a highlight for the team. The Pelicans started the road trip with a 107-99 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves on December 18, 2019 and went on to finish the four-game road trip 3-1.
“The Christmas trip really kind of showed us what we could possibly do, even when we weren’t at full strength,’ Gentry said.
The New Orleans rookie and No. 1 overall pick in the 2019 draft Zion Williamson made his debut in a 122-117 loss to the San Antonio Spurs on Jan. 22. The team went 11-8 after the loss to the Spurs.
“Everybody was very accepting of their roles and we were playing very good basketball,” Gentry said. “I thought that was more of an indication of what we were capable of.”
The Pelicans currently sit at the 10th seed in the West with an overall record of 28-36.