The Pelicans Made The WORST Draft Week Trades | Rachel Nichols & Chris Mannix

The Pelicans Made The WORST Draft Week Trades | Rachel Nichols & Chris Mannix

let’s talk about a team that had or has had a very weird couple of days and that I know who you’re going to say
that is the New Orleans Pelicans
ding ding ding ding ding
they have had a very strange early run in the Joe Dumar’s Troy Weaver era in New Orleans uh to recap a couple of days ago they acquired Jordan P and Sadi Bay from the Washington Wizards for CJ McCollum and Kelly Olen the Wizards reasons for acquiring those guys was pretty easy those guys their contract comes off the books next year and they could have as much as a hundred million dollars in cap space in the summer of 2026 i get it from the Wizards perspective jordan Pool though has a fat contract and an inefficient game sadiq Bay didn’t play last year recovering from an ACL injury showed some flashes before then of being a decent player um so they do that deal and I’m like “Huh okay well I guess you did want to shake things up around Zion.” Even David Griffin was talking about that the last couple of years so there you go you do with that then you get to draft night and they draft with the seventh pick Jeremiah Fears i actually like that pick again I think Fierce has a long runway but 3 years from now when he’s 21 years old he could be a franchise point guard like he’s that young but I think the talent in him is real uh the next decision they make is to trade up from the 23rd pick which they held to the 13th overall pick they traded up 10 spots to draft Dirk’s Dirk Queen the cost was that 23rd overall pick and a 2026 first round pick which is the better of the two picks between the Pelicans and the Milwaukee Bucks two teams that have very shaky short-term futures uh that pick here’s how one executive described that pick to me he said he said quote “They traded away one of the five most valuable draft picks in the entire league across all years from 2026 to 2032 to move up 10 spots that is a huge price to pay.” They also drafted Derek Queen i’m not a fan of Derk Queen i I’ve I’ve watched him and and I’ve talked to other teams about him he is he has as much variance I think as any player that was drafted in the lottery like you can look at Derek Queen and you can see a guy with great hands great footwork developing into kind of that combo forward center in the modern NBA but he’s not an efficient shooter he has an incredibly slow release he’s like the Tim Tibo of the NBA like his his release is really slow and he he just doesn’t have great size like he’s not a big guy i’m looking at Dark Queen I’m like him next to Zion how does that work um did Troy Weaver like him cuz he played at Maryland like I don’t know i I couldn’t forget the fact I mean I guess you can’t forget the fact they traded away the 2026 pick cuz that’s the big part of all this but they move up 10 spots to draft Derek Queen and they give away a pick that could turn out to be the number one pick overall in next year’s draft which is projected to be really damn good especially at the top um
but you’re missing one word when you describe this unprotected yeah
they gave it away unprotected into what is supposed to be this year next year are supposed to be two of the best drafts of this era
i I I I don’t understand it and I am not a college basketball expert i always see to the guys who scout all year when it comes to the draft but in a lot of those reports from the guys who scout all year there have been some red flags about conditioning is that who you want to draft if the New Orleans if you’re the New Orleans Pelicans and you’ve got the Zion problem and you’re in a city that does not do great for people’s conditioning because of all the food there I I just the the thing to come back to though is unprotected pick
i I don’t understand it it doesn’t make sense our friend Zach Low had an interesting theory um Bryson Graham who used to be in that front office and overlapped a little bit after David Griffin when Joe Joe Dumar came in that he went to Atlanta and he had sort of some inside intel on who Joe was looking for and able to help work part of that deal
um I don’t know if that’s true but I like that Zach Low theory it doesn’t make sense though even if somebody wants you to do something dumb frankly that there’s no reason you have to do it change calling boss and be like you know I know that Jaylen and Jason aren’t the best of friends right maybe you
maybe you should give us Jaylen Brown right you don’t have to do Lowry
right you don’t have to do it
and a top 20 protected first
i I just you know I I am a big Joe Demar fan personally i I think he likes some of those old school feel players and I think Derek has a little bit of that but I I just this is a huge mystery i absolutely think giving away that pick will come back to bite them i absolutely think it’s going to end up being a great pick and I I just it is in this day and age where everything is just analyzed to the last decimal of a decimal of a decimal and where the owners have created rules that they can’t spend their way out of problems by creating 18 aprons and they’ve limited trades so you can’t compound salaries and making trades can be more difficult what you have is drafting and giving away one of those picks including an unprotected possible number one pick is absolute insanity there’s there’s no excuse for it
it’s nuts and and I’m I’m trying to pull up the Western Conference standings on my uh my iPad right now like it
Oh and you’re not winning anything
that’s what I’m saying you look at the Western Conference next year like do you have New Orleans in your top 10 no
in the Western Conference
no
I don’t um the Bucks you know a month from now the Bucks could be rebuilding like they could be trading Giannis i mean I don’t know what’s happen but the one of those two picks is going to be really good yeah
one of those picks two picks is going to be in the lottery room and what have we seen in that lottery room of the last few years if there’s no overall to the system and I don’t think there’s going to be not in the short term no um you’re talking about a pretty decent chance that the owner of that pick jumps up in the lottery i mean I thought I thought Atlanta had an excellent couple of days you go and get Porzingis like yeah you got to give up a little bit of talent a draft pick but you get a guy on an expiring contract you can take one more swing with this Trey Young le team before choosing to do something else if you decide to do something else you got maybe the number one overall pick next year or top five pick next year great great deals by the Atlanta Hawks the Pelicans I don’t know what Joe’s doing down there i don’t get it i I just don’t get the thought process of bringing in Jordan Pool like what like Jordan Pool kind of sort of I mean he did help them win a title in 2022 he was part of that mix but has not shown anything really in you know Washington besides durability he’s a durable guy um
I I don’t get it i don’t get the Pelicans last couple of days i don’t
we we’ve been in the transaction era you know fans never used to follow transactions as closely as we have over the last five seven years so we’ve been in that era anyway i think because of the limitations I just mentioned from the CBA and all of the restrictions I just think the role of the front office just continues to grow and whether your team wins a title depends more on how savvy your front office is than it ever has before in the NBA and we are starting to see what those differences are and differences that may have read in the past it’s like that wasn’t a great decision that seems like a better decision now that we do all minutely analyze every decision these guys make because we have to because it is the future of their team we are seeing where some of the cracks and fissures are and I this is one I don’t get yeah I don’t get it either

Chris Mannix and Rachel Nichols break down the New Orleans Pelicans disastrous draft week trades that saw them move CJ McCollum for Jordan Poole and trading one of the most valuable picks in next years draft to move up and take Derik Queen
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