Pelicans make unthinkable decision on Warriors' legend Kevon Looney

After the firing of Willie Green 24 hours earlier, new interim coach James Borrego clearly wasn't in a sentimental mood in his first game in charge of the New Orleans Pelicans against the Golden State Warriors at Smoothie King Center on Sunday.

Kevon Looney's first game against the Warriors was supposed to be a notable event given his stature as a 3x champion at the franchise, yet it proved rather underwhelming as Borrego made the unthinkable decision of letting the veteran center rot on the bench for the entire 48 minutes.

Kevon Looney was a DNP-CD in his first game against the Warriors

Looney may have been the biggest loser from the coaching change, having not only lost his starting role but also his entire spot in the rotation despite the ongoing absence of star forward Zion Williamson.

After dealing with injury to start the season and playing just over 16 minutes off the bench in his return on November 2, Looney had started six-straight games for the Pelicans in which they had a 2-4 record.

That was under Green though who lost his job on Saturday. As his replacement, Borrego's first notable move was to remove Looney from the starting lineup and insert impressive rookie Derik Queen, matching Golden State's small-ball lineup which didn't work very effectively given the visitor's went for 44 points in the opening period.

With Queen and second-year center Yves Missi playing nearly 25 minutes each, there was no room for Looney who would have undoubtedly loved to go up against long-time teammates Stephen Curry and Draymond Green.

While there should be no team in the league gifting minutes, the Pelicans clearly don't appear a playoff threat at a conference-worst 2-11 to start the season. The fact they couldn't give Looney a few minutes to battle his former teammates feels wrong, but it's also indicative of where he now finds himself in his NBA career.

To make matters worse, Looney couldn't even get garbage minutes as the Warriors recorded a comfortable 124-106 victory. Perhaps garbage minutes would have been disrespectful to Looney against his former team, particularly if it came after Curry left with just under five minutes remaining.

Golden State would have pencilled in this matchup as an opportunity to face Looney and Jordan Poole for the first time as members of the Pelicans. Instead, both failed to take part as Poole recovers from a quad injury that's now seen him miss the last six games.

Looney's two-year, $16 million contract with the Pelicans looks underwhelming from a team perspective if he's getting DNPs 13 games into the season, further proving the Warriors made the right call in moving on from him during the summer.