‘Tough break, right?’: Pelicans coach Willie Green on injured Trey Murphy missing start of the season

This upcoming 2023/24 campaign finally seemed like the year that the Pelicans would have a fresh start with a healthy roster. However, just as Zion Williamson seems to be as fit as ever, Trey Murphy III fell to injury this summer and will miss at least the first month of NBA action. 

Coach Willie Green is well aware the team seem overdue for a season of good health, but he wants to concentrate on the things he can control to create new opportunities.

“It is challenging, maybe frustrating at times,” the trainer expressed. “But we try to shift our focus to what we can control. I try to look at it as much as I can as opportunity. Opportunities for players to step up, opportunities for guys who might not have gotten time, and opportunities overall for our team and our organization.

“No team wants to deal with injuries, but we understand it’s a part of it. Hopefully, we can go into the season pretty healthy, obviously minus Trey’s situation. If we do, we can compete with any team in the NBA.”

The #Pelicans announced today that forward Trey Murphy III underwent a successful partial meniscectomy and received a biologic injection in his left knee this afternoon.

The surgery was performed by Dr. David Altchek at the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) in New York.… pic.twitter.com/XAlYGg1Z9o

— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) September 7, 2023

When referring specifically about Murphy’s situation, he recognized that it’s a shame considering how he showcased his talent last season, plus all work he was putting in this summer.

“Tough break, right? Trey Murphy is coming off a fantastic year for us. He was working his tail off in the offseason. We were in the gym preparing, he took a misstep, kind of tweaked his knee. We learned he had a torn meniscus,” Green said.

About Trey’s pains, which should heal by December, the coach acknowledged the fact that it was helpful that he suffered the injury inside the New Orleans’ facilities.

“With him being at our place, we knew exactly what happened. But at the end of the day, it was still a tough break for Trey, tough news for us,” he said. “The positives are that this is not a career-ending injury at all. We were hoping we were going to have him back at some point.”

The coach is grateful to have both Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram healthy and ready for camp, but still needs other players to step up in the shooting department

“So far, so good,” coach Green said when asked about how stars Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram have performed so far this offseason.

“We want to take steps in the right direction on both ends. We hang our hats on being a good defensive team first. But we’ll take some steps offensively this season because we hired James Borrego [former Spurs assistant and Hornets head coach] as one of our top assistants,” he continued.

Now that Murphy is out of the picture, the Pelicans trainer admitted that the rest of the team has to tune their shooting precision for this next campaign, especially as last season they ranked as the 29th worst team in three-point efficiency.

“Other guys have to step up in that department. We know C.J. [McCollum, who led New Orleans in volume, 211 of 543) is more than capable. Brandon, historically, is a good 3-point shooter – he needs to take more. There will be more shots for Naji [Marshall], Herb and Jose. And then we drafted Jordan Hawkins from UConn, who is an elite shooter coming out of college. He may get some minutes when we need shooting on the floor,” Green explained.