Near the end of Saturday’s open practice, first-year New Orleans Pelicans players Jimmer Fredette, John Salmons, Russ Smith and Patric Young sat down for a Q&A session with a few hundred fans. The questions were tougher than those asked by the most grizzled of sports reporters.
Among the probing queries were “Which other team do you want to beat the most?” and “The West is very tough – how many wins will it take to make the playoffs?” as well as “What do you think of Monty Williams’ coaching strategy?”
The quartet of brand-new Pelicans deftly answered the questions, without saying anything that would get them in trouble. But then someone in the crowd made a request of Young, a University of Florida graduate, that seemed like a setup, particularly in the heart of LSU country.
“Hey Patric, can we see you do the Florida Gator chomp?” asked the fan. Young immediately obliged, probably not realizing he was about to get roundly booed. The 6-foot-9, 240-pound rookie forward laughed at the crowd’s hilarious reaction.
The back-and-forth between players and fans was one highlight from the team’s annual free-to-the-public event, which included an intrasquad scrimmage and Williams being “miked up” as the Pelicans practiced plays. Perhaps the most entertaining portion of the two-hour session, however, was the interaction between first-time Pelicans and the crowd, which showed particular interest in rookies Young and Smith.
“Hey, what did you guys do with the Disney backpacks you had to carry around (during preseason)?” one curious fan wondered of the first-year pros.
“Well, we actually still have them,” clarified Young, who noted that his backpack is from the movie Frozen and Smith’s pink bag features the character Minnie Mouse. “We’ll probably have to carry them all season.”
No one was willing to take the bait on naming a team they’d most prefer to defeat this season, but a few fans went on to ask specifically about certain opponents.
“What do you guys think it’s going to take to beat the Cleveland Cavaliers?” a fan asked, somewhat randomly.
“Well, somehow we are going to have to try to stop LeBron,” said a grinning Salmons.