The New Orleans Pelicans have hired former Indiana Hoosiers guard Vijay Blackmon as the team's newest assistant strength and conditioning coach.
Fans of the New Orleans Pelicans await roster news for next season, but the team is still putting together its coaching staff, with another move coming on Tuesday.
College basketball insider Ben Stinar reported that the Pelicans have hired former Indiana Hoosiers guard Vijay Blackmon as an assistant strength and conditioning coach. He didn't have a lengthy playing career, but he has been around the sport for a while.
The guard appeared in seven games for the Hoosiers in the 2018/2019 season. He made one of the two threes he attempted for his career. His father was an Indiana basketball star back in high school and has been a local high school coach since the early 2000s.
Coaching was his path forward while his brother, James Blackmon Jr., continues his playing career overseas.
Vijay has now made to the NBA as an assistant coach and will begin that path on Jamahl Mosley's staff. There is a lot of overlap from the Orlando Magic, as expected, but there was also room for some new faces like Blackmon. He is joining a good young group of coaches hoping to find their footing in a new city.
Blackmon will work closely with Kurt Joseph, who was hired as the team's director of strength and conditioning this past offseason. Joseph previously held the same job for the Nebraska Cornhuskers.
It's a young and unproven group running the strength and conditioning in New Orleans this year. That's not necessarily a bad thing. They clearly needed to change things up after the past few years. When they made the sweeping changes to the organization this offseason, medical is one that was going to receive some of the most work.
