The BIGGEST Disaster In The NBA Just Got Even Worse…

The BIGGEST Disaster In The NBA Just Got Even Worse…

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but the New Orleans Pelicans do not look great right now. And somehow it’s even worse than it has been in the past. They’re not very good as a team. We’ve seen that before. They’re hurt. We’ve seen that before. But now the future of the team is in question. And I’m not taking a victory lap or anything, but I did have them ranked 14th in my season preview in the Western Conference. And right now, that is coming to fruition. And that’s crazy for a team that a couple of years ago had one of the brightest futures in the entire league. And I know that because in the 2022 offseason, I did a video ranking the future of every single team in the league. And I had the Pelicans near the top of that list. They had Zion, Brandon Ingram, Dyson Daniels, Trey Murphy, Herb Jones, and a bunch of future first round picks still from moves like trading away Drew Holiday. And what has happened between then and now has resulted in ultimately the architect of that version of the team, David Griffin, being fired going into the 2025 offseason. Yet somehow things got even worse because in that off season to replace David Griffin, they brought in Joe Dumars to run the team who immediately put together what looks like one of the worst NBA offseasons we have seen in a very long time. And it’s crazy that we’re already at this point because coming into the season for New Orleans, even though I wasn’t optimistic about them, there was reasons to be optimistic. Like, yes, you were worried about the Zion health aspect of it. You were worried about the team in general being healthy. you’re worried about potentially the coach. But on the other hand, you had Zion and if he could be healthy, him and a bunch of the other wings that they have, Trey Murphy, Herb Jones, some of the rookies that they brought in, you could see a version of this team that was really, really deep around Zion. It was going to be able to guard and they could maybe push for like a 45 win season in the Western Conference. And we’ve seen a very similar version of this team have success in recent years. Just two years ago, the one actual fully healthy Zion season the Pelicans have ever gotten. They won 49 games. So going into the year, it wasn’t like the sky was necessarily falling in New Orleans, which I would guess is why they made some of the moves that they did in the offseason because they felt optimistic about what the team would be. Unfortunately, none of them have worked out. The first move, and I’m sure the one that everybody is anticipating me talking about in this video, is the draft night tradeup for New Orleans. At the time of the draft, they had the seventh pick and the 23rd pick. The 23rd pick they got in a different deal that they made that we’re going to talk about later. But going into the draft, that’s exciting, right? You’ve got two top 25 picks. You’ve got one in the top 10. They end up taking Jeremiah Fears at seventh overall. Reportedly, they were between either Jeremiah Fears or Derek Queen. So, we’re going to talk about here in a second. And taking Fierce made total sense. They needed more help in the back court. They needed a young guard to grow and develop. They have plenty of young wings. They have a bunch of talent in the front court and they felt like Jeremiah Fears was a playmaking scoring guard that could really help them. Makes total sense. Then we get to 13th overall and all of a sudden the Pelicans are on the clock because they’ve traded up with Atlanta to go all the way up to the 13th pick from the 23rd pick. And in general, trading up in the NBA draft is a pretty good idea. the value of the draft pick overall in terms of them turning into something significant all-star level or above decreases significantly the further you go in the drafts or trading up generally a good strategy. The problem was New Orleans traded their 2026 first round pick to Atlanta unprotected to go from 23 to 13 and they take Derrick Queen. And the issue with that is twofold. one, it puts a ton of pressure on Derrick Queen to be something because you are trading basically multiple first round picks. You’re using one and trading one in order to go and get this guy. So, he better be really good. And more significantly than that, it puts a ton of pressure on the Pelicans this season to be good so that you’re not trading away, I don’t know, a top five pick in exchange for trading up from 23 to 13, which no team in their right mind would ever do. And in general, we have seen teams execute this well in the past. It’s not the same scenario, but when Dallas moved up to get Luca, they gave up an extra first round pick to do so. It ended up at 10th overall. That pick becomes Cam Reddish. Not that big of a deal. But there is obviously a large gap between that situation and where New Orleans is. both in terms of the prospect that they’re selecting, comparing Derek Queen to Luca Donuch’s prospects, and also specific to the situation of the New Orleans Pelicans, who for the last, I don’t know, forever in the history of their franchise are the most injured team in the league basically every single season. So, if you believe in the roster and you think we’re going to be pretty good, we’re going to win 45 games, that’s one thing if you’re thinking about trading away an unprotected first the following year. But it’s another thing to think not only are we going to be good so we can afford to give away the pick, but we’re also going to be healthy. That line of thinking has absolutely zero evidence of being true in the last 10-year history of the New Orleans Pelicans. And for Joe Dumar to show up and immediately think this is how we need to take our next step forward made absolutely no sense. And I’m not the only one that thinks so because reportedly the GM of the Hawks had to call back and ask the New Orleans Pelicans, hey, we’re on the same page here, right? You want to make this particular move. You want to give away your 2026 first round pick unprotected to go from 23 to 13. I just want to make sure. Joe Dear said, “Yep, let’s run it.” And you know what’s happened? The Pelicans are hurt. The Pelicans are bad. And they’re on pace to give away a top five pick to the Atlanta Hawks. long way to go as the recording of this video, but the scenario that has occurred to begin the year where Zion is dealing with some injury thing, the team overall isn’t very good, is the exact scenario in which you do not trade away your unprotected first round pick. You wait until 23 and you can trade that pick or keep it, whatever the case may be, but you don’t give it away to go up and take Derrick Queen, unless you think Derrick Queen is going to be an AllNBA caliber player, which he could be, but it still doesn’t make sense given the context of the roster in the team. The other thing they did in the offseason that made absolutely no sense was the CJ McCollum for Jordan Pool trade, which in the context of this discussion was essentially just CJ McCollum plus some other contracts in exchange for Jordan Pool other pieces there, but for the purposes of the discussion, it’s fine. This trade at the time made absolutely zero sense because yes, Jordan P in theory is probably a little bit better and he’s certainly younger and maybe you think that’s just a better fit for your roster, but given where New Orleans was, given that Zion’s on a massive contract, couple of other guys are very expensive, the thing that you’d like to have, especially in this environment in the NBA where teams are worried about salaries, they’re worried about the second apron. The thing you’d like to have is flexibility. And the side of that trade that gives you flexibility is the CJ McCollum side of it because Jordan Pool’s contract runs for another year beyond this season where CJ McCollum was a 2026 free agent. So even on the floor, if you think it’s a slight upgrade going from McCllum to Jordan P, which I think is arguable, adding the extra year of salary limits what you can do next offseason. And maybe Jordan Pool is an okay expiring contract in the offseason, but I can guarantee you that when the Wizards found out they could dump Jordan Pool in exchange for CJ McCollum and cut that year’s salary off their books, that was a complete gamecher for them and they couldn’t believe that that was an option. And when you really think about it from a roster franchise perspective, the Wizards and the Pelicans are not very far apart in what their goals should be moving forward. And so they should be thinking the same way. And for some reason, New Orleans is thinking, how can we step forward? How can we try and win now? Oh, we can take on an extra year of salary and in this Jordan pool McCollum trade and it just makes absolutely no sense. The third thing that happened in the offseason though, and this is the craziest one. This is the the cherry on top of the whatever you want to call it Sunday. They traded away the Indiana Pacers 2026 first round pick which they had possession of. They owned it in exchange for the 23rd pick in the 2025 draft which we talked about earlier was part of the Derek Queen trade and trade up. So, it seems like if you follow the line of thinking, they wanted an extra first in this draft to maybe get Derrick Queen or someone else or to use that to move up to, it turns out, the 13th pick to take Derk Queen. And the way that they did that was they gave the Pacers back their 26th pick and they got back their 25 pick which landed at 23rd overall. Problem with all of this is they made this trade like during the middle of the NBA finals and a couple of days later Tyres Howard and tears his Achilles and now the Pacers are near the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings and could easily also have a top five pick in the draft which is just a crazy turn of events for a team that has already made a bunch of crazy moves in the offseason. I can’t blame them for this particular move because it’s just crazy timing. You’re trading that pick away thinking, “Okay, Indiana just went on this really good run to the Eastern Conference. The East isn’t going to be all that good next year because by this point Jason Tatum had already been hurt. This is probably the 28th, 27th, 26th pick in the draft next year. We’re getting the 23rd pick. Nobrainer. We’ll use this to try and move up. And it’s just a crazy set of circumstances. And it’s something that just continues to happen to the Pelicans themselves. Untimely injuries, franchise stars getting hurt, and then all of a sudden everything that could possibly go wrong goes wrong. And that’s the theme of their offseason. bad decision-making and bad luck. And of course, now as we go into the season, things immediately fall apart. Everything that couldn’t happen for the Pelicans to begin the season is happening. Zion has some random injury. The team in general is not playing particularly well. You have questions about the coach. You have questions about the roster construction. And now you’re in this place where if things continue on this path, what you’d like to do is play Jeremiah Fears a lot and play Derrick Queen a lot and give them an opportunity to grow and develop. But you can’t really do that, or at least it doesn’t make sense to do that in terms of giving those guys opportunities in exchange for not being as competitive. Doesn’t make as much sense when you don’t own your own 2026 first round pick because it’s going to go to Atlanta no matter what happens. There’s no pick protection on it. And it’s just crazy to think about how this super cool future that the Pelicans had a couple of years ago has just vanished. And not only has it vanished, but it’s gone completely in the other direction with a roster that is loaded with big contracts, is loaded with guys that are getting hurt all the time, and doesn’t have access to their 2026 first round pick. And for a franchise that has had the opportunity to bring in Anthony Davis and trade him and draft Zion Williamson all within the last 15 years, to have the limited amount of success that they have over those 15 years is kind of mind-blowing. And they’re now sitting in a situation where they might win 25 games this year and get absolutely nothing out of it from a draft pick perspective. And given where the Pelicans were coming into the year and what they look like moving forward, that is nothing short of a disaster.

The New Orleans Pelicans and Zion Williamson are the biggest disaster in the NBA… coming off of an offseason in which they might have traded away two different top 5 picks in the 2026 NBA Draft.

#pelicans #nba #nbadisaster