{"id":573075,"date":"2026-01-31T14:43:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T14:43:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/573075\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T14:43:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T14:43:17","slug":"pelicans-derik-queen-nearly-matches-larry-bird-in-prestigious-nba-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/573075\/","title":{"rendered":"Pelicans\u2019 Derik Queen nearly matches Larry Bird in prestigious NBA history"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Derik Queen draft pick will always loom large for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/nba\/new-orleans-pelicans\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New Orleans Pelicans<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s because the draft pick they traded to move up and take Queen last year could turn into the No. 1 overall pick this year.<\/p>\n<p>But for Queen&#8217;s part, he&#8217;s trying to prove that it still wasn&#8217;t a bad maneuver.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday night, Queen made himself the third player in NBA history to reach 600 points, 350 rebounds and 200 assists inside of 50 career games. He did it in 49.<\/p>\n<p>MORE:\u00a0<a target=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/ncaa-basketball\/duke\/news\/duke-legends-cooper-flagg-kon-knueppel-all-time-nba-record-mavericks-hornets-blue-devils\/604523884f75b065863eed85\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Cooper Flagg, Kon Knueppel set all-time NBA record as Duke rookie foes<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The fastest-ever to do it was Ben Simmons, in 44 games.<\/p>\n<p>The second-fastest? Larry Bird, in 47 games.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s quite the company for Queen to be keeping.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Since the NBA-ABA merger, there have only been three players to record 600 PTS, 350 REB, and 200 AST in less than 50 career games:<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Larry Bird (47)<br \/>&#8211; Ben Simmons (44)<br \/>&#8211; Derik Queen (49)<\/p>\n<p>Larry Bird and Ben Simmons both won Rookie of the Year. <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Hy9Tg4aUZr\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/Hy9Tg4aUZr<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Underdog (@Underdog) <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Underdog\/status\/2017481674502877587?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">January 31, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>MORE:\u00a0<a target=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/nba\/cleveland-cavaliers\/news\/naeqwan-tomlin-didnt-play-high-school-basketball-rising-nba-star-cavaliers\/8d761f661b211db6052182ce\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Cavs&#8217; Nae&#8217;Qwan Tomlin didn&#8217;t even play high school basketball<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Queen&#8217;s latest performance was 22 points, 9 rebounds, 7 assists (and 2 blocks) in a win over the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/nba\/memphis-grizzlies\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Grizzlies<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s averaging 12.3 points, 7.4 rebounds and 4.3 assists for the season, but has shown his upside in some impressive nights across the stat sheet.<\/p>\n<p>All Queen can do is keep performing to his best ability and trying to lift the Pelicans himself, knowing they invested a lot to get him.<\/p>\n<p>More NBA news:<\/p>\n<p>                            <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Derik Queen draft pick will always loom large for the New Orleans Pelicans. That&#8217;s because the draft&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573076,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3796],"tags":[7,6,478,470,4073,4072,675],"class_list":{"0":"post-573075","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-orleans-pelicans","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-new-orleans","11":"tag-new-orleans-pelicans","12":"tag-neworleans","13":"tag-neworleanspelicans","14":"tag-pelicans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115990246583376303","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}