{"id":773746,"date":"2026-06-29T16:00:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T16:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/773746\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T16:00:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T16:00:18","slug":"pelicans-decline-team-option-on-kevon-looney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/773746\/","title":{"rendered":"Pelicans decline team option on Kevon Looney"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) &#8211; The New Orleans Pelicans declined a team option on the contract of veteran center Kevon Looney over the weekend, according to Yahoo Sports. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The three-time NBA Champion is now an unrestricted free agent. <\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">New Orleans Pelicans are expected to decline the $8M team option on veteran center Kevon Looney, making the 3-time NBA champ an unrestricted free agent, league sources tell me. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/U45QTgHWKy\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/U45QTgHWKy<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ChrisBHaynes\/status\/2070699210484203976?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow\">June 27, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">While he was expected to fill a major role in New Orleans, injuries and roster changes caused Looney to fall out of the rotation. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Yahoo Sports reports that the Knicks and Celtics expect to be suitors for Looney in free agency. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The move leaves only one true center on the Pelicans\u2019 roster, Yves Missi. Second-year player Derik Queen has logged starts at center but has seen significant playing time at power forward. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The Pelicans are expected to pursue a center in free agency or through potential trades. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">See a spelling or grammar error in our story? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox8live.com\/2026\/06\/29\/pelicans-decline-team-option-kevon-looney\/mailto:WVUE-digitalcontent@gray.tv\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Click Here<\/a> to report it. Please include the headline.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Subscribe to the Fox 8 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UC3ijTadOgOLbGWGC1rRy9lA?sub_confirmation=1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube channel<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 WVUE. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) &#8211; The New Orleans Pelicans declined a team option on the contract of veteran center&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":773747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3796],"tags":[7,4500,9436,9440,9439,9438,6,478,470,4073,4072,675,8544,9441,9437],"class_list":["post-773746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-orleans-pelicans","tag-basketball","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-live-speeches","tag-live-updates","tag-live-video","tag-nba","tag-new-orleans","tag-new-orleans-pelicans","tag-neworleans","tag-neworleanspelicans","tag-pelicans","tag-press-conference","tag-real-time-coverage","tag-video-updates"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116834233484753044","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773746","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=773746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/773747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}