The New Orleans Pelicans’ offseason has completed little to quell considerations about their future. New GM Joe Dumars has barely been on the job for 3 months however has already made a number of head-scratching strikes.
He made the wildly dumb resolution to commerce up 13 spots within the 2025 NBA Draft to pick Derik Queen by giving up a 2026 unprotected first within the course of. Sadly, he’ll miss the beginning of subsequent season and even perhaps longer after struggling a leg harm.
His getting injured earlier than he even performs a sport for New Orleans is simply the most recent in what seems to be a Pelicans curse. After all, Pelicans star Zion Williamson is the poster youngster of their harm woes, and one other Zion harm might spell catastrophe for New Orleans.
The Pelicans are sitting on a ticking Zion Williamson time bomb
After getting back from a hamstring harm, Zion performed nicely final season, however it’s exhausting to think about him with the ability to keep wholesome all of subsequent yr. That is what makes Dumars’ resolution to commerce the rights to their unprotected first-round decide all of the extra ridiculous.
Until the whole lot goes proper for the Pelicans, which it nearly by no means does, they might be the worst staff within the West subsequent season, all however guaranteeing they’d have one of many 5 worst information within the NBA.
Given how gifted the 2026 NBA draft is with 4 elite prospects, the Pelicans will nearly definitely remorse buying and selling their decide. In any case, even when Queen and Jeremiah Fears are good, they nonetheless might have handed on an opportunity at a high younger participant.
It calls into query the way forward for the franchise. Their place to begin guard, Dejounte Murray, will doubtless be out till February after struggling an Achilles tear final season. He is owed $30 million a yr over the subsequent three seasons and is probably not the identical participant he was earlier than the harm.
Additionally they traded for Jordan Poole, who, regardless of having a very good season final yr, is extremely polarizing. He is owed $35 million a yr over the subsequent three seasons.
The Pelicans roster with Zion Williamson is unnecessary
That is what makes this roster so complicated. They’ve good gamers corresponding to Trey Murphy, Herb Jones, and Zion, however the inflow of recent gamers does not make sense for the staff they’ve. For example, Zion and Queen can be a horrible match subsequent to at least one one other within the frontcourt.
Buying and selling Zion and ranging from close to scratch makes essentially the most sense, and it appeared as if that was what Dumars meant to do. Nevertheless, his commerce market is probably going filth low-cost proper now, and so they could function him within the lead-up to the commerce deadline to maneuver him and transfer on from him.
However even one harm wouldn’t solely tank his worth but in addition the Pelicans’ season, inflicting a double whammy of ache. They’d be caught with Zion and caught hoping that he can keep wholesome whereas additionally unable to correctly rebuild after buying and selling their 2026 first-round decide. Robust occasions for the Pelicans.
