Southwest Notes: Pelicans, Anthony, Mirotic, Mavs

The Pelicans, suffering through lingering injuries, are still looking to establish a new identity, writes William Guillory of The Athletic. For example, the team was without Nikola Mirotic and Darius Miller early on this preseason, but when both returned Friday, newcomer Julius Randle sat out because of a minor back injury.

Given the above, it’s no surprise that the Pelicans are winless through their first three preseason games, with head coach Alvin Gentry saying his team was unimpressive in Friday’s loss to the Knicks. “I didn’t think we played very good at all.  We didn’t have ball movement… That’s not who we are at all.”

Fortunately for the Pelicans, they still have time to figure things out before the season starts, and Randle did suit up and play in tonight’s game. Ultimately, the team believes it has all the pieces in place to compete in the Western Conference and build on last year’s success. We’ll begin to find out if they can when they visit the Rockets one week from tonight to open the 2018/19 regular season.

There’s more from the Southwest Division:

• In other Pelicans news, Liz Mullen of the SportsBusiness Journal tweets that BDA Sports and Bill Duffy have signed Mirotic away from Dynasty Sports. Mirotic will be an unrestricted free agent in next summer’s talented free agent pool.
• As Sam Amick of The Athletic notes, the addition of Carmelo Anthony for the Rockets brings the combined All-Star appearances between the team’s new “Big 3” (Chris Paul and James Harden) to 25 – the same combined total between the Warriors’ Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and DeMarcus Cousins.
• The Mavericks have fired team photographer Danny Bollinger after he was accused of having a history of propositioning female co-workers and making lewd comments, writes Brad Townsend of The Dallas Morning News.