Joe Dumars has been quite busy since he was hired as executive vice president of basketball operations for the New Orleans Pelicans in mid-April.
There’s plenty of work to be do when you take over a franchise coming off a 21-61 season, the second worst record in franchise history.
It's probably why Dumars’ office in the Pelicans' facility still looks barren. A desk. A chair. A shelf with a couple of framed photos of his family. That's it.
There are no reminders of Dumars’ glory days as a player in Detroit when he helped the Pistons win back-to-back NBA titles in 1989 and 1990. There isn’t anything to let you know that the Pistons won another title 14 years later when he was in charge as director of basketball operations. There’s nothing in the office that would let you know that Dumars is in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame or the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame. Dumars, a Natchitoches native who went on to star at McNeese State University, doesn’t really have time these days to reflect on his past. His focus right now is solely on the future of the NBA franchise in his home state. It’s up to him to try to get things pointed in the right direction.
Dumars took time on Wednesday to talk to _Times-Picayune_ sports columnist Rod Walker. A wide range of topics were discussed, [including the future plans for start forward Zion Williamson and head coach Willie Green](https://www.nola.com/tncms/asset/editorial/8aead765-a4fc-4757-b4bb-4f02303a3e43/). But a large portion of the interview focused on Dumars’ first few weeks on the job and his vision for the franchise. Here’s an excerpt from that part of the interview.
**T-P:** What have these first seven weeks been like for you?
**Dumars:** It’s been great being back. I’ve been here a month and a half and I just like waking up being here. Driving in here every morning has been really good. Really, I’m playing catch- up a little bit. One of the things you have to do when you step into these roles is you have to get an understanding of your building. Who’s in the building? What’s the environment in the building? You have to have a grasp of your building and who’s there and what do you have? The way I do that is I spend a lot of time talking to people. Just everybody in the building and getting their assessment of what is happening and seeing what matches up. What are some of the common themes? So this first month has been just me trying to get my arms around the building.
**T-P:** What did you learn in having those conversations?
**Dumars:** I learned that what we have here are some really good people in the building. I’m really impressed with that. When you have groups like this, what you have to do is define who you are and what your mission is and the things you’re trying to accomplish so people can understand where it’s going. So that’s been a lot of the conversation. The environment. The culture. The goals for us. That’s part of the conversations I’m having with everybody. So everybody can understand and so there’s no confusion about what the goal is.
**T-P:** I’m sure I know the answer to this, but what are those goals?
**Dumars:** We want to win. We want to be a team that’s viewed around the NBA not only as a winning team, but we want to also be viewed as a first-class organization. Yes, you want to win. But you want to be viewed as a first-class organization as well. That’s about how you come in every day and do things and how you go about your work every day. How you treat people. How we do things here in this building. All of that is important. Of course we want to win. But I also want people to say the Pelicans do things the right way. That’s work. You come in and you start living that every day so people can see it and understand this is where we’re going. Culture is about how you feel when you walk in the building.
**T-P:** When you look at the current roster, what do you like and what are some areas the roster needs to improve?
**Dumars:** We have some good talent on the roster. When this team has been healthy, it’s been a formidable team. Unfortunately, last year it was just decimated with injuries and I acknowledge that. But that doesn’t stop you from setting the bar higher and pushing harder to be better. I don’t think we can be satisfied with what happened two years ago when the team had success. I don’t think you can look at that and say “Ok, we can see what we can be.” You have to push past that. You can’t just aspire to be that. You have to set the goal higher than that and that’s what we intend to do. We intend to push for this team to try to max out because there is some good talent on this roster.
**T-P:** At your introductory press conference, you said you would try to assess all the injuries and figure out why there were so many. What have you found out?
**Dumars:** Some of those were just flukes and there is nothing you can do about those. That happens in sports. But just like the conversations I’ve had with Willie ad Zion, I’ve also had conversations with the medical staff. We’ve went back over every one of the injuries that happened to every player here and tried to decipher and find out which ones were flukes and which one of these could have been internal that we could have done better? We’ve assessed every single injury to every single player. What could we have done better? Is there something we could have done better? We are continuing to have those conversations because these guys are in rehab now. So we’re meeting every week on the rehab that’s going on. Are we on top of this? When are we sending somebody to see this guy? It’s real comprehensive what we’re doing as far as medicals because what’s been shown is if this team is healthy, it’s a team that can compete. So that becomes critical to make sure we are doing everything we can to put the healthiest team out there on the floor.
**T-P:** Any updates on Dejounte Murray, Herb Jones and Trey Murphy?
**Dumars:** There's nothing to report. Guys are in the middle of their rehab and all of them are on schedule. That’s the good news. Our medical staff is all over it to make sure we don’t miss anything.
**T-P:** What would be your message to fans who doubt that this year is going to be any different from last year?
**Dumars:** I’m really here to bring a certain style of play. We’re not really looking at it as trying to compare it to what has gone on here prior to us. We’re coming in expecting to win. We are here to raise the bar. We’re not here to be happy with mediocrity. I think people will see that in our style of play. We want to be aggressive on both ends of the court. If you go back and look at any of the teams that I have had or that (senior vice-president of basketball operation) Troy (Weaver) has had, we’ve been the aggressors. And I also think this and I truly believe this. The absolute best teams reflect their city. I think the Bulls reflected Chicago. The Showtime Lakers reflected L.A. The Bad Boys reflected Detroit. The Indiana Pacers reflect Indianapolis and OCK reflect Oklahoma City. With your best teams, there is a connection between the city and the style of play. The fans look at it and say “Yeah, that represents us.” That is what I hope people see when we play. I want them to see that we represent New Orleans. I’m from Louisiana, so I have a feel for the resilience and I know people aren’t t quitting here. That’s just not the personality of the city. So I think it’s important that your team reflects that. Fans should be able to look at the team and say they absolutely are playing and representing what we stand for.
**T-P:** Do you think fans will notice a difference right away?
**Dumars:** It’s a mistake to ever come in and just say we’re going to change things over night. It’s just not how sports works. The two teams (OKC and Indiana) that you see in the Finals now. None of that was overnight. That was a process. It’s a process to get teams to where they want to be. But it shouldn’t be a process for the fans to see us play in a style that they like. The success part of it might be more of a process. But the style of play – resilience, toughness, playing hard, never quit – that’s’ what we want people to see right away.