Pelicans Open the Season Tonight Against Indiana, With a New Coach and a Former LSU Forward on the Roster

The Pelicans get a fresh start tonight. The 2026-27 season tips off at 7 p.m. at the Smoothie King Center against the Indiana Pacers, and doors open at 5:30. Last season ended at 26-56, with just nine road wins all year. The game airs on the Gulf Coast Sports & Entertainment Network and, in the New Orleans area, free over the air on FOX 8, with a stream on Pelicans+.

The biggest change is on the bench. The team hired Jamahl Mosley on May 18, making him the 10th head coach in franchise history. He spent the past five seasons in Orlando, where his teams went 189-221 and made the playoffs three years in a row. Before that, he was an assistant for seven seasons in Dallas under Rick Carlisle. In Orlando he had a reputation for bringing along a young roster, and he'll find plenty of young players waiting for him in New Orleans.

Much of the core will look familiar. Zion Williamson, Trey Murphy III, Herb Jones and Dejounte Murray are all back, according to the team's roster. So is Jeremiah Fears, the No. 7 pick in 2025, who played all 82 games as a rookie, the most games by a rookie in franchise history. Yves Missi and Derik Queen give the team two young centers, and DeAndre Jordan, 38, is still around in his 19th season to show them how the job gets done.

Then there are the new faces. Bennedict Mathurin, the wing signed in September, averaged a career-high 17.6 points last season in a year split between Indiana and the Clippers. That makes tonight a reunion with the team that drafted him sixth overall in 2022. AJ Johnson came over from Memphis in a September trade. Malik Dia of Ole Miss and Julian Reese of Maryland signed two-way contracts, and guard Jaron Pierre Jr. of SMU was the 58th pick in June.

Louisiana fans will want to keep an eye on No. 9. Trendon Watford, the former LSU forward, signed in August heading into his sixth NBA season. The Birmingham, Ala., native played his college ball in Baton Rouge before going undrafted in 2021, and now he has a shot at earning minutes about 80 miles down the road from his old college arena.

Saddiq Bey, who averaged a career-high 17.7 points last season, started the Oct. 14 preseason win at Dallas alongside Mathurin, Karlo Matković, Missi and Fears. The preseason went up and down. The Pelicans went 2-1 on the road at Tulsa, Miami and Dallas, then closed with their only home exhibition, a 107-106 win over Washington on Oct. 16. Preseason records don't count for anything, but a one-point win in front of the home crowd sure beats the alternative.

The schedule doesn't ease them in. After tonight, the Pelicans head west for back-to-back games: Friday at Utah and Saturday at Denver. They come home to face the Nuggets again on Wednesday, Oct. 28, host Sacramento on Oct. 29 and play Atlanta on Halloween at 6 p.m. Winning on the road was the hardest thing for last year's team to do, so folks will be watching that first trip closely.

If you're planning a game night, the home schedule is easy to keep straight. All home games start at 7 p.m. except a handful of weekend games: three Saturdays at 6 p.m. (Oct. 31 vs. Atlanta, Nov. 14 vs. Denver and Jan. 2 vs. Miami) and four Sundays, including a 1 p.m. Valentine's Day game against the Clippers. Sixteen of the 39 home dates fall on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday.

One October game won't settle the season. It will give New Orleans its first look at Mosley running the bench, and its first look at Williamson and Mathurin together in a game that counts. For Watford, it's his first regular-season home game in the state where he played college ball. Tipoff is at 7.

Photo: Infrogmation of New Orleans, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.