NEW ORLEANS — The New Orleans Pel­i­cans fired coach Alvin Gen­try on Sat­ur­day after the club missed the play­offs for the fourth time in five seasons.

The Pel­i­cans went 30–42 this sea­son, fin­ish­ing with just two vic­to­ries in their final eight games despite the pres­ence of top over­all draft choice Zion Williamson and first-time All-Star Bran­don Ingram in the line­up until the club was elim­i­nat­ed from play­off con­tention with two games to play.

“These types of moves are often about fit and tim­ing,” Pel­i­cans bas­ket­ball oper­a­tions chief David Grif­fin said in announc­ing Gentry’s ter­mi­na­tion. “We believe now is the right time to make this change and bring in a new voice.”

Gen­try went 175–225 since his hir­ing by for­mer Pel­i­cans gen­er­al man­ag­er Dell Demps after the club fired Monte Williams fol­low­ing the 2014–15 sea­son, when Antho­ny Davis was the face of the franchise.

The Pel­i­cans made the play­offs in Gentry’s third sea­son, sweep­ing Port­land in the first round before falling to even­tu­al cham­pi­on Gold­en State in the sec­ond. But the Pel­i­cans were derailed the fol­low­ing sea­son by a com­bi­na­tion of injuries and Davis’ trade demand, which pre­cip­i­tat­ed Demps’ firing.

Gen­try was retained even after Demps was replaced by Grif­fin and the coach’s con­tract was extend­ed through the end of next season.

But the Pel­i­cans fal­tered once again this sea­son, start­ing 6–22 and labor­ing through a fran­chise record 13-game los­ing streak while top over­all draft choice Zion Williamson missed the first 44 games of the sea­son with a knee injury.

The Pel­i­cans ral­lied back into con­tention for a play­off berth and were ful­ly healthy when the sea­son resumed in cen­tral Flori­da late last month after a hia­tus caused by the coro­n­avirus pandemic.

Odds mak­ers favored the Pel­i­cans to make the play­offs, but loss­es in four of six after resum­ing their sea­son elim­i­nat­ed them from play­off contention.

“I want to thank Alvin for his con­tri­bu­tions to the Pel­i­cans and the New Orleans com­mu­ni­ty,” Pel­i­cans own­er Gayle Ben­son said. “We believe that mak­ing a head coach­ing change is nec­es­sary at this time. I tru­ly appre­ci­ate Alvin’s lead­er­ship, ded­i­ca­tion and per­se­ver­ance through some chal­leng­ing cir­cum­stances over the past five seasons.

“Our inten­tion mov­ing for­ward is to find the right head coach that will guide this Pel­i­cans team to com­pete for cham­pi­onships,” Ben­son added. “That is what our fans deserve.”

Gen­try came to New Orleans from Gold­en State, where he was a top assis­tant under Steve Kerr when the War­riors won the 2015 NBA title.

New Orleans was the fifth head coach­ing stop for Gen­try, who is 65. He also has served as a head coach with Mia­mi, Detroit, the Los Ange­les Clip­pers and Phoenix, com­pil­ing a career coach­ing record of 510–595.