Report: Pelicans parting ways with Teresa Weatherspoon

The New Orleans Pelicans are parting ways with assistant coach Teresa Weatherspoon, according to a Thursday tweet from The Athletic Senior NBA Insider Shams Charania.

"Pelicans are parting ways with assistant coach, Basketball Hall of Famer Teresa Weatherspoon." Charania wrote. "Weatherspoon has been on staff since 2020, developing a strong rapport with players like Zion Williamson, and turned down other opportunities in hopes of rising in New Orleans."

Weatherspoon was initially hired as a two-way player development coach for the Pelicans in 2019 before being elevated to a full-time coaching position in 2020. She developed a close relationship with New Orleans forward Zion Williamson, helping him through the process of recovering from the broken right foot that kept him out of action for the 2021-22 season.

"She saved me from so many kind of like mental breakdowns," Williamson said in 2022, via Sports Illustrated. "When you see somebody cry for you because of what you're going through—she cried for me. 

"She didn't have to do that. . . . And just seeing that made me realize, Wow, I really have somebody special in my corner."

Earlier in her coaching career, Weatherspoon was hired as an associate HC with LA Tech in 2008 before taking over the team's head coaching spot in 2009. She would help guide the Lady Techsters to a record of 90-69 and two appearances in the NCAA Tournament before being fired in 2014. "T-Spoon" spent four seasons with LA Tech from 1984-88, leading the team to a victory over Auburn in the 1988 NCAA Women's Basketball Championship.

Weatherspoon played for eight seasons in the WNBA after the New York Liberty drafted her in the 1997 WNBA Allocation Draft. She was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Hall Of Fame in 2019 following a career that saw her earn five All-Star selections and two Defensive Player of the Year awards.