NBA 2025-26 Case Study —
New Orleans Pelicans

After an 0-6 start and head coach Willie Green already embattled, it seemed like a moment to take a look at the Pels, using the "Roland Five Coaching Factors" framework.

Surprise surprise though, Zion Williamson was announced to be out for 7-10 days, so our study will be New Orleans without Zion or Dejounte, the supposedly two key players.

• New Orleans 116, Charlotte 112 (RHP: Kalkbrenner 30, Murphy III 27)
• New Orleans 101, Dallas 99 (RHP: Murphy III 41, Washington 25)
• San Antonio 126, New Orleans 119 (RHP: Wembayama 47, Murphy III 37)
• Phoenix 121, New Orleans 98 (RHP: Williams 28, Allen 25)
• Portland 125, New Orleans 117 (RHP: Queen 34, Sharpe 28)
• LA Lakers 118, New Orleans 104 (RHP: Doncic 36, Smart 29)

*** Willie Green Fired / Borrego now Interim HC ***
• Golden State at New Orleans (11/16)

2-4 after the loss to the Lakers, and Willie Green let go. Pelicans are 4-1-1 in Ref Effects after the Lakers held sway with the refs, and 3-3 in Physicality and Shotmaking, 2-4 in Playing Hard and Decision Making. Full writeup coming at the end of the seven game set.

"Roland Hard Play" scores (per 36 minutes):
27 — Trey Murphy III
22 — Derik Queen
...31 — Matkovic (low minutes)

Often you hear it said that you can’t measure heart, hustle, or toughness.
The Roland 5 Coaching Factors tracking system aims to prove otherwise — breaking every game down into five key areas: Physicality, Playing Hard, Decision Making, Shotmaking, and Referee Effects.

Across many, many games tracked from the 2024–25 season and playoffs, the data not only shows who wins these categories — it’s highly predictive of who wins the game:

• Winning the "Playing Hard" effort count won the game 85% of the time!
• The better "Decision Making" team is running an 80% win rate.
• More Physicality Wins wins the game 75% of the time.

Roland Five Coaching Factors: EUROBASKET

Often you hear it said that you can’t measure heart, hustle, or toughness.
The Roland 5 Coaching Factors tracking system aims to prove otherwise — breaking every game down into five key areas: Physicality, Playing Hard, Decision Making, Shotmaking, and Referee Effects.

• Germany 88, Turkey 83 (F.Wagner 23 RHP Score, Sengun 19)
• Greece 92, Finland 89 (Giannis 56, Papanikolaou 24)


• Turkey 94, Greece 68 (Sengun 30, Osman 25)
• Germany 98, Finland 86 (Schroder 30, Jantunen 27)


• Greece 87, Lithuania 76 (Giannis 38, Valanciunas 24)
• Turkey 91, Poland 77 (Larkin 26, Sengun 24)
• Germany 99, Slovenia 91 (Theis 36, Doncic 29)
• Finland 93, Georgia 79 (Jantunen 28, Bitadze 20)

In these eight games, the team winning the "Decision Making" is 8-0, the "Playing Hard" winner is 7-1. The better Shotmaking team is 6-1 (one tie), the Physicality winner is 6-2, and it is also 6-2 for the Referee Effects winner.

Is Eurobasket more physical than the NBA? Too small a sample to tell, but by one simple measure — Falls — the answer is yes (so far). There have been 48.6 Falls per 48 minutes in these Eurobasket games, compared to 39.3 falls per 48 minutes in the 2024 NBA Playoffs.

Top Player Performances: (single game)
— Physicality Net Wins: Giannis +27, Theis +15
— Playing Hard Wins: Schroder 28, Giannis 25
— Decision Making: Schroder +17, Schroder +17
— Shotmaking: Osmani +9, Osman +8
— Referee Effects: Giannis +5, Kostas Antetokounmpo +5

Raw Physicality Wins — Giannis 48, Sengun 34
Ref Argues — Doncic 10, Sengun 7
Knockdowns — Giannis 12, Theis 7
Falls — Schroder 10, Giannis 9