{"id":700620,"date":"2026-04-06T02:05:29","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T02:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/700620\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T02:05:29","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T02:05:29","slug":"the-new-orleans-pelicans-traded-away-their-future-now-what-the-tulane-hullabaloo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/700620\/","title":{"rendered":"The New Orleans Pelicans traded away their future. Now what? \u2022 The Tulane Hullabaloo"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New Orleans Pelicans<\/a> have had quite an interesting year. Now that the season is all but over and they are out of the running for a play-in tournament spot, they will have to regroup for the upcoming offseason.<\/p>\n

This summer will be a tough one. The Pelicans only own one second-round pick<\/a> in this year\u2019s draft after trading away fan-favorite Jose Alvarado<\/a>. They lost all of their other capital for this draft after multiple trades, with the most notable ones<\/a> occurring on the night of the 2025 NBA Draft.<\/p>\n

After selecting guard Jeremiah Fears<\/a> seventh overall and owning no more first-round picks, they decided to use the two first-rounders they owned in 2026 \u2014 one being their own and the other via the Indiana Pacers<\/a> \u2014 to trade back into the first round. They ended up selecting forward Derik Queen<\/a> thirteenth overall.<\/p>\n

Queen has produced solid numbers \u2014 hovering around 11 points, six rebounds and three assists. He has also played 78 games up to this point, showing his durability.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, recently he has been struggling<\/a>, which makes the draft day trade look increasingly unforgivable, especially when considering the talent that New Orleans would have a shot at acquiring.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dejounte Murray<\/a> returned from his year-long rehab of an Achilles tear<\/a> and has reminded everyone why he was an all-star just a few years back. His leadership and poise set a great example, which matters on a young team.<\/p>\n

Now that they only have a few meaningless games left, the Pelicans have to look forward. Only veteran center DeAndre Jordan<\/a> is on an expiring contract<\/a>, as big men Kevon Looney<\/a> and Karlo Matkovic<\/a> have team options, which means that the front office will decide whether or not they want to re-sign them.<\/p>\n

Because of this, there won\u2019t be much roster flexibility on a team that is talented but unproven and injury-prone. Murray, Zion Williamson<\/a> and Jordan Poole<\/a> will be making north of $30 million per year<\/a>, so they can\u2019t go after a star in free agency. Trey Murphy III<\/a> and Herb Jones<\/a> are on relatively good-value contracts, but with where the team is, anyone can be traded.<\/p>\n

Not having much valuable capital or salary cap flexibility makes this offseason difficult yet important. The organization needs to figure out a way to assemble a team that will produce the results the NOLA faithful have been craving for the past few years.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New Orleans Pelicans have had quite an interesting year. Now that the season is all but over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552281,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3796],"tags":[7,6,478,470,4073,4072,675],"class_list":{"0":"post-700620","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\/116355316266164263","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700620","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=700620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=700620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=700620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=700620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}