In his debut with the Pelicans, DeMarcus Cousins scored 27 points and had 14 rebounds and the team's other All-Star, Anthony Davis scored 29, but the Pels fell to the Houston Rockets, 129-99.
New Orleans dropped to 23 and 35 while Houston improved to 41 and 18.
The Pels also lost the second player they picked up in a trade with Sacramento. Omri Casspi broke his right thumb while making contact with Houston’s Eric Gordon, attempting to make a steal and he will be out for 4 to 6 weeks.
Lou Williams debuted with the Rockets and had 27 points off the bench. Houston's bench scored a total of 79 in the winning effort. James Harden had 13 points to go along with 14 assists.
Cousins said after the game, “It was good to just get back to basketball, finally. I know there was a lot of anticipation coming up to this for the city, for the fans and for myself as well.”
“Nobody expected us to win – I didn’t – the championship in our first game. We see the potential and what we need to work on. Get a good practice in tomorrow and try to learn from these mistakes," Cousins added.
20 turnovers by the Pelicans led to 25 points for the Rockets.
“I thought the turnovers early on kind of changed the whole game," Coach Alvin Gentry said. "We turned the ball over way too many times and gave up points. This is not a team that you can do that against.”