Issues are going from unhealthy to worse for the New Orleans Pelicans, whose poor begin has reminded followers of their terrible offseason strikes. They made arguably the worst offseason transfer of the summer season by buying and selling the twenty third choose and an unprotected choose within the 2026 NBA Draft to the Atlanta Hawks for the thirteenth choose and the draft rights to Derek Queen.
Queen has regarded nice up to now, however the Pelicans have the worst document within the NBA, and that in all probability is not going to get significantly better. Meaning it is totally attainable that they traded a top-5 choose in what’s shaping as much as be an outlandishly good 2026 NBA Draft.
AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, and Cam Boozer all have the expertise to be 5-time all-stars. And it is not just like the Pelicans did not know they’d be unhealthy sufficient to presumably have a excessive lottery choose.
Worse nonetheless, they traded the Indiana Pacers again their 2026 first-round choose in alternate for his or her choose within the 2025 NBA draft, which was the choice they traded for Queen.
Hindsight is 20/20, and the Pelicans had no means of figuring out that simply days after making that Pacers commerce, star Tyrese Haliburton would tear his Achilles in Recreation 7 of the NBA Finals.
The one crew that has had worse luck than the Pacers in the previous couple of months is the Pelicans. They may have held onto that choose, their very own choose, and been sitting fairly with two potential top-10 picks in subsequent 12 months’s NBA Draft.
Three winless NBA groups this morning: Nets, Pacers, and Pelicans.
New Orleans owned each its personal and Indiana’s 2026 firsts, then new GM Joe Dumars traded each in June. And now each picks are have prime 3 odds in a loaded draft.
Gulp! pic.twitter.com/QtfA9MY2Nu
— Kevin O’Connor (@KevinOConnor) October 30, 2025
Joe Dumars has the New Orleans Pelicans in free fall
All of those failed strikes lie on the toes of just lately employed GM Joe Dumars. Dumars beforehand ran the Detroit Pistons into the bottom after initially being a incredible GM. Sadly for Pelicans followers, he seems to be doing it once more already.
There was his baffling determination to accumulate Jordan Poole although he’s making greater than $30 million a season for the subsequent 3 years. In the meantime, additionally they have Dejounte Murray, who’s making comparable cash over the subsequent two and is at present injured.
These two gamers clearly aren’t part of their long-term plans, and even Zion Williamson will not be, resulting in questions on what their plan is strictly. Does Dumars actually have a plan? The perfect anybody can inform is that he’s hoping to strike gold with Queen and Jermaiah Fears, however he could have mortgaged their future to take action.
