Willie Green is starting to rock the shaker and won’t stop until his team, the New Orleans Pelicans, starts to perform better.. Their season so far is one of the worst among the Western Conference teams, specifically placing second from the tail and only surpassed in chaos by the Rockets. It was expected to be a season with ups and downs and in which it would be difficult to fight to be among the top eight, but perhaps not that much. Green, a first-year coach if we stick to his position as the main of the bench, begins to be very unprotected by the defeats he is dragging and his squad is helping little. Jonas Valanciunas seems the only one, Brandon Ingram has not stood out since his season debut after injury and Zion Williamson continues to rebound amid a tense climate surrounding his status in the franchise.
In this context, Willy Hernangómez is moving just after renewing his contract and ensuring the remainder of this year and two more in the NBA. There is job security for the 27-year-old Spaniard, what there aren’t are minutes on the track. At least until now. Until his game this past morning against the Timberwolves, he had participated in only 4 games of the 18 of the Pelicans, all defeats and all minor moments. I went out to just over 5 minutes per appointment, but as if nothing. I was out. Now everything can change. Luck is also there to take advantage of it. In the last match played, it was gathered that the coach trusted him as the second pivot, overtaking Hayes as a substitute, and that Valanciunas, the starter, played little due to foul problems so that Willy could reach a good number of minutes, 22 , and transform it into positive production: double-double (19 + 11) and only one miss in field goals (8/9).
Willy still has to convince his new coach, but he may already be on the way. His rival for position is Hayes, there is no remote option that he becomes a starter unless his level jumps to that of Shaquille O’Neal when he arrived at the Lakers. But in his role he has shown that he can give more if more is given to him. The fit of Zion Williamson as a center, because it is assumed that he will play minutes in that position, can subtract both him and the starter, ValanciunasBut getting to the time when Duke’s exited megastar returns to the slopes as a primary option off the bench may see Willy sneak into the rotation for quite a while, something that hasn’t been happening until now.
Last year, with a similar structure (there were Adams, Bledsoe or Ball, now Valanciunas, Satoransky or Temple), he vindicated himself to get minutes from Stan van Gundy. He stood at 9.7 points on average when he played 20 minutes or more and 9.2 points when he was 10 minutes or more, better than There is. With this he gave him to continue in the NBA, but he has to rebuild himself again. At the right moment, the older of the Hernangómez takes out his claws again.
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