New Orleans Pelicans: 2019-20 NBA season player grades

Coaching season grade:

Alvin Gentry

The 2019-20 season was head coach Alvin Gentry’s fifth season with the New Orleans Pelicans. In those five seasons, the Pelicans have only made the playoffs once, with that memorable sweep of the Portland Trail Blazers back in 2018. The Pelicans look ready to make the step up next year and finally become an annual playoff team, but sadly Gentry won’t be there. Following their torrid bubble period, the Pelicans made the decision to part ways with Gentry.

Gentry’s career with the Pelicans had its fair share of player injuries, and this season was no different. Drafting Zion in 2019 felt like the Pelicans had struck gold, but his injury-plagued rookie year left little time for the Gentry-Zion partnership to ever grow.

You have to give Gentry some credit for the way he’s dealt with Ball and Ingram coming in and how they’ve turned it around. Gentry is a player’s coach and his impact would’ve been positive on these young players in their early days.

The New Orleans Pelicans looked like they could very well be a playoff team early on, but this never fluctuated. The players didn’t look like they wanted to be in the bubble, and there was far from 100 percent effort. It looked like they’d given up and that the Gentry era time was ticking.

The next Pelicans coach will have a lot on his shoulders but is definitely going to have a smoother ride than Gentry did. Going into a new year with this squad of players healthy is something that Gentry never had the opportunity of. The timing was just off.

Coach Grade: C-