Pelicans New Coaching Staff and Trades Post-Draft

When the dust settled Wednesday night virtually, of course, the New Orleans Pelicans came away with one player which was their first-round pick at 13th overall in Kira Lewis Jr. a speedy guard out of Alabama.

It was originally thought that the Pelicans were going to keep the 42nd overall pick out of Kentucky, center Nick Richards but he has officially been traded according to the New Orleans Pelicans PR Twitter account:

In addition, they held the 39th overall pick in which they flipped to the Utah Jazz in a draft-day deal as well.

Finally, the Pelicans did hold the final pick in the draft at 60th but that had been flipped to the Milwaukee Bucks in the Jrue Holiday deal as Sam Merrill was selected (Bryan Kalbrosky)

Alright, let's dive into the new-look coaching staff that'll be working with the team this coming 2020-2021 season under Stan Van Gundy. The team made the announcement on Monday that they will be adding the following people as assistant coaches, Bob Beyer, Casey Hill, and Rex Walters.

There will also be two former players that are joining the staff as player development coaches in Corey Brewer and Beno Udrih.

These new additions will work alongside returning assistant Fred Vincent aka the shooting guru, recently promoted Teresa Weatherspoon, and player development coach Darnell Lazare.

Here's a little bit of background on the new guys joining the staff.

Bob Beyer:

Beyer is a man with tons of basketball coaching experience, he's 58 years old and has spent the last 35 years of his life coaching the game of basketball at both the professional and collegiate levels. As far as professional teams go he's worked for the Toronto Raptors (2003-04), the Orlando Magic (2007-12) with Stan Van, Golden State Warriors (2012-13), Charlotte Bobcats (2013-14), the Detroit Pistons (2014-18) also with SVG, Oklahoma City Thunder (2018-2019), and last season he spent with the Sacramento Kings.
At the collegiate level, he spent time in the '80s and '90s with the University of Albany, Siena College (head coach), University of Wisconsin, Northwestern University, and the University of Dayton. One of his more notable stops was at Texas Tech though where he worked under famed head coach Bobby Knight from 2001-2003.

Casey Hill:

Casey Hill is the son of the tenured NBA head coach Bob Hill and he's just 37 years old but that doesn't mean he lacks experience. He began his coaching career working with his father internationally as an assistant with the Tokoyo Apache in a professional league out in Japan. His first big coaching opportunity came within the Golden State Warriors organization where he got the opportunity to be the head coach of the Santa Cruz Warriors, Golden State's G League affiliate. He spent four seasons as their head coach from 2013-2017 and within that timeframe not only won a Championship (2014-2015) but were also recognized in a big way. As the Pelicans article states his team achieved "the 2013-14 NBA G League “Development Champion” award, an annual honor that recognizes the team that best embodies the league’s goals of developing NBA basketball talent via call-ups and assignments." The previous two seasons he's worked with some very talented players in the Los Angeles Clippers organization.

Rex Walters

A former NBA player who was drafted 16th overall in the 1993 NBA Draft by the New Jersey Nets. He was mainly a role player in his nine-year NBA career and spent a lot of time after playing coaching collegiately at many different spots. In addition, he was an assistant under Stan Van Gundy in Detriot during the 2017-2018 season. Last season he was with the Demon Decans of Wake Forest as an assistant coach.