The New Orleans Pelicans’ offseason has achieved 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 choice to commerce up 13 spots within the 2025 NBA Draft to pick out 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 recreation for New Orleans is simply the most recent in what seems to be a Pelicans curse. In fact, Pelicans star Zion Williamson is the poster baby 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 effectively final season, but it surely’s laborious to think about him having the ability to keep wholesome all of subsequent 12 months. That is what makes Dumars’ choice to commerce the rights to their unprotected first-round choose all of the extra ridiculous.
Except every part goes proper for the Pelicans, which it nearly by no means does, they could possibly be the worst staff within the West subsequent season, all however guaranteeing they’d have one of many 5 worst data within the NBA.
Given how proficient the 2026 NBA draft is with 4 elite prospects, the Pelicans will nearly actually remorse buying and selling their choose. 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 possible be out till February after struggling an Achilles tear final season. He is owed $30 million a 12 months over the subsequent three seasons and will not be the identical participant he was earlier than the harm.
In addition they traded for Jordan Poole, who, regardless of having an excellent season final 12 months, is extremely polarizing. He is owed $35 million a 12 months over the subsequent three seasons.
The Pelicans roster with Zion Williamson is mindless
That is what makes this roster so complicated. They’ve good gamers comparable to Trey Murphy, Herb Jones, and Zion, however the inflow of latest gamers does not make sense for the staff they’ve. For example, Zion and Queen could be a horrible match subsequent to 1 one other within the frontcourt.
Buying and selling Zion and ranging from close to scratch makes probably the most sense, and it appeared as if that was what Dumars supposed to do. Nonetheless, his commerce market is probably going filth low cost proper now, they usually might characteristic 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 additionally 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 choose. Powerful occasions for the Pelicans.
