The New Orleans Pelicans’ approach to player health has become inseparable from every basketball conversation around this team. Zion Williamson, Dejounte Murray, Trey Murphy III and Herb Jones give New Orleans enough size, creation and defensive versatility to make opponents uncomfortable. The problem has been getting those players onto the same floor long enough to matter.
Last season offered both encouragement and another warning. Williamson played 62 games, a major rebound after appearing in only 30 during 2024-25. He had played 70 games in 2023-24, so the real progression runs 70, 30, then 62. Murray’s path proved harsher. He fractured his left hand in October 2024, returned that November, then ruptured his right Achilles in January 2025. That second injury cost him more than a year before his eventual return during the 2025-26 season.
Those timelines explain the urgency now. Training camp opens September 29, and New Orleans cannot spend it merely installing sets and sorting rotations. The medical plan has to become part of the basketball plan itself.
Jamahl Mosley inherits the problem and the opportunity
Before deciding how New Orleans should handle workloads, start with the man designing the practices.
Jamahl Mosley arrives after five seasons in Orlando, where his teams developed a clear defensive personality. The Magic finished third in defensive rating in 2023-24 and second the following season. Even during Mosley’s final year, he continued to emphasize paint protection, rebounding and precise defensive assignments.
That matters because Mosley does not inherit a blank slate. Willie Green was dismissed in November 2025, with James Borrego finishing the season as interim coach. New Orleans hired Mosley in May after Orlando moved on from him following three consecutive playoff appearances.
Joe Dumars made that hire. Dumars is no longer working in the NBA league office. He left that position and became the Pelicans’ executive vice president of basketball operations in April 2025, giving him control of personnel, scouting and transactions.
Together, Dumars and Mosley have talked about physical defense, work ethic and accountability. Those principles sound perfect for a young roster, but they also create a delicate training-camp balance. Mosley wants intensity. His performance staff needs restraint in the right places. The challenge is making those ideas cooperate rather than compete.
The Pelicans cannot practice every player the same way
Good training camps create stress. Players fight through contact, sprint back after turnovers and repeat defensive actions when their legs already feel heavy. New Orleans should keep that edge.
What it cannot do is give Zion Williamson and Jeremiah Fears identical physical plans simply because both players have been cleared to practice.
Zion needs preparation without unnecessary mileage
Williamson’s 2025-26 season gives the Pelicans’ workload strategy something tangible to build around.
He played 62 games, started 55 and averaged 29.7 minutes. More importantly, his body handled far more basketball than it had the previous season. That does not mean New Orleans should treat September as proof that the problem has disappeared.
Williamson’s value comes from violent acceleration. He explodes through gaps, absorbs bodies at the rim and changes direction while carrying far more force than most forwards. Those actions should shape his camp workload.
Mosley does not need Zion winning conditioning drills. He needs Zion repeatedly making the movements New Orleans will demand in January: sprinting into early offense, defending multiple actions, finishing through contact and recovering well enough to do it again two nights later.
The distinction sounds small. Over six months, it becomes enormous.
Murray needs basketball rhythm more than punishment
Murray presents a different problem. His October 2024 hand fracture interrupted the beginning of his Pelicans career. Then came the Achilles rupture against Boston on January 31, 2025, followed by the long rehabilitation that pushed his return into the next season.
By March 2026, Murray was again playing games around the 30-minute range. Now New Orleans needs to recover his command.
That means live pick-and-roll possessions with Williamson. It means learning where Murphy wants the ball when defenders load toward the paint. It means building timing with young guards such as Fears instead of burning Murray’s legs through meaningless extra running.
A hard camp can prepare him. A careless one can waste valuable repetitions.
Lineup continuity is worth protecting
Here sits the strongest argument for changing how New Orleans manages player availability: the best Pelicans combinations actually worked.
NBA.com’s offseason analysis found that the Pelicans outscored opponents by 6.6 points per 100 possessions across 303 minutes when Murray played alongside at least two of Williamson, Murphy or Jones. Then comes the painful part: all four appeared together in only nine games, and New Orleans went 3-6 in those games.
That sample is too small to declare the lineup a finished product. It is large enough to show why continuity matters.
Mosley needs to discover how those pieces fit before another injury forces improvisation. With Murray handling the ball, Williamson can attack against a defense already moving. Murphy stretches help defenders several feet farther from the paint. Jones gives Mosley his best point-of-attack defender while cutting around stars who command far more attention.
Those relationships require repetition, and they also require healthy bodies. That is why a missed September scrimmage should not automatically bother New Orleans. Missing months of regular-season basketball should.
Health planning should shape the rotation
The previous version of this roster often treated injuries as emergencies. Someone went down, then the coaching staff rebuilt the rotation around the absence. Mosley has enough personnel to plan those adjustments before they become necessary.
The current roster gives him options. Jeremiah Fears can absorb more ball-handling work when Murray sits. Bennedict Mathurin adds another perimeter scoring option. Derik Queen and Yves Missi give Mosley young frontcourt combinations to test around Williamson. Jordan Poole, Herb Jones and Trey Murphy III can each change how New Orleans builds a lineup.
Camp should test those combinations deliberately. When Williamson rests, Mosley can see whether Queen can facilitate from the middle while shooters move around him. If Murray gets a reduced practice day, Fears can run the first unit instead of simply dominating second-team possessions. When Jones sits, New Orleans can learn which combination survives against quick opposing guards.
That makes workload management less about sitting players and more about creating useful minutes when they do sit. Young players also stop experiencing spot starts as emergencies because they already know the spacing, defensive responsibilities and preferred actions of the starters around them.
For a team that has spent years reshuffling rotations, that preparation could matter as much as any new play Mosley installs.
Mosley’s defensive demands make recovery even more important
New Orleans did not hire Mosley to build a passive defense. His best Orlando teams defended with size and physicality. They protected the paint, finished possessions on the glass and forced opponents to work through bodies rather than cruise into comfortable actions.
That style requires healthy legs.
Jones can chase elite guards, but asking him to fight through screens every night carries a physical price. Murphy’s length gives Mosley another switchable defender, yet New Orleans also needs his legs underneath a high-volume three-point shot. Williamson can become devastating when he runs after stops, but those transition opportunities disappear when fatigue keeps him below the ball.
Recovery therefore affects tactics. Coaches should use medical and performance data to decide how much high-intensity work each player needs, then Mosley can spend those repetitions on the actions that matter most.
For Jones, that might mean screen navigation against Fears or Murray. For Williamson, it could mean repeated transition bursts followed by half-court defensive possessions. Murray may need long stretches of live pick-and-roll work because timing matters more than another conditioning circuit.
That approach still creates demanding practices. It simply demands the right things.
New Orleans finally has continuity worth preserving
The Pelicans finished 26-56 last season with the league’s 20th-ranked offense and 23rd-ranked defense. Yet this is not another summer built around massive roster turnover.
NBA.com calculated that returning players accounted for 93 percent of New Orleans’ 2025-26 minutes, the second-highest retention rate in the league at the time of its August analysis.
Mosley therefore walks into an unusual situation. The results were poor, but the roster already knows itself. That allows him to spend less time teaching basic familiarity and more time discovering which combinations can survive the season.
The performance staff should take advantage of that continuity. Instead of pushing veterans through every camp possession to create chemistry they largely already possess, New Orleans can use those minutes selectively.
Quality matters more than volume here. Get Williamson and Murray enough live work to sharpen their timing. Give Murphy repetitions off both stars. Let Jones establish Mosley’s defensive standards. Then use Fears, Queen and the rest of the younger group to stretch the rotation.
September should answer questions, not create new injuries.
The real test comes months after camp
Training camp creates an easy illusion. Everyone arrives refreshed. Legs bounce. Coaches speak about energy. Players talk about new habits. A few strong preseason performances can make an entire offseason feel successful.
New Orleans has lived through enough injury cycles to know better.
The real measure of the Pelicans’ health strategy will arrive when the schedule tightens, flights pile up and the same ankle starts feeling sore for a third straight morning. Mosley will have to decide when one more practice helps and when recovery gives him more value. Dumars will have to judge whether the roster contains enough depth to protect the core without surrendering games.
Most of all, the Pelicans need their best players to learn each other through repetition. Williamson played 70 games, then 30, then 62 across the past three seasons. Murray went from a broken hand to a ruptured Achilles to another comeback. Murphy has already dealt with interruptions of his own. None of those histories guarantee another injury, but they do demand attention.
New Orleans does not need to turn training camp into rehabilitation camp. Mosley should push this group. He should demand the physical defense that defined his best Orlando teams and force young players to compete for minutes. Every hard practice, though, needs a basketball purpose.
That is the reset New Orleans needs before September 29.
If Williamson, Murray, Murphy and Jones can share the floor long enough to discover what this roster really is, the conversation changes. For once, the Pelicans could spend a season solving basketball problems instead of wondering who will be healthy enough to solve them.
READ ALSO: Pelicans youth development will decide whether 2026-27 finally feels different
FAQs
When does Pelicans training camp start?
NBA training camps open September 29. New Orleans will use camp to install Jamahl Mosley’s system and manage workloads across an injury-tested roster.
How many games did Zion Williamson play last season?
Williamson played 62 games in 2025-26. He started 55 and averaged 29.7 minutes per game.
When did Dejounte Murray return from his Achilles injury?
Murray returned during the 2025-26 season after more than a year of rehabilitation. By March, he was again playing close to 30 minutes in some games.
Why is lineup continuity important for the Pelicans?
New Orleans outscored opponents by 6.6 points per 100 possessions when Murray played with at least two of Williamson, Murphy and Jones.
Who is the Pelicans’ head coach for 2026-27?
Jamahl Mosley is the Pelicans’ head coach. New Orleans hired him in May 2026 after five seasons with the Orlando Magic.
