The New Orleans Pelicans had a lot riding on the 2025 NBA Draft. The team suffered through a miserable 21-61 season, riddled with injuries that infected practically their entire core roster, some of which will carry over into the next campaign. Despite finishing with a bottom-four record, they did not land a top-four pick.
Instead, the Pelicans were jumped by three different teams in the NBA Draft lottery, which pushed them down to seven. The 2025 rookie class was expected to have several heavy hitters, with multiple players at the top of the board possessing true All-Star potential. That left the door open for New Orleans to still acquire a potential cornerstone, despite their tragic lottery luck.
Ultimately, they made three picks: Oklahoma Sooners point guard Jeremiah Fears at seven, Maryland Terrapins center Derik Queen at 13, and Georgetown Hoyas wing Micah Peavy at 40. Consensus says that the Pelicans did good work, coming away with three solid prospects — even if their process could've been better. Still, it's incredibly difficult to pick the best player available once, let alone three separate times in the same draft. Here are the three rookies that could make the Pelicans regret their selections at each slot from the 2025 NBA Draft:
The New Orleans Pelicans passed on some incredible talent in the 2025 NBA Draft
1. 7th pick: Khaman Maluach (10th)
At seven, the Pelicans fell just outside of the sweet spot in this draft. After Duke's Cooper Flagg and Rutgers' Dylan Harper, there were a handful of prospects who nearly every analyst worth their salt thought had some legitimate star potential. All of them went before New Orleans was on the clock.
Still, there were a few players left who had equally high ceilings, albeit with much lower floors than the top group of prospects. New Orleans grabbed one of them with Jeremiah Fears. However, they left a much more physically imposing talent on the board, one whose sheer size might give them a much higher ceiling by default: 7'1" center Khaman Maluach out of Duke.
Maluach isn't a typical plodding seven-footer. Along with his massive frame, he has unnaturally agile feet for his size, butter-soft hands, and has exponentially improved his game in each of the only six years he's been playing basketball so far. His blend of natural gifts and rapidly developing fine skills could make him a two-way star soon, one that could impact the game in ways that Jeremiah Fears never will.
2. 13th pick: Carter Bryant (14th)
The Pelicans' decision to trade up and draft Derik Queen was mercilessly dissected by analysts and pundits across the league, not because of Queen's shortcomings but due to the price New Orleans paid in order to acquire him. I wonder if the critics of the deal would have felt the same way had the Pels swung for the fences with Carter Bryant instead?
In his lone year with the Arizona Wildcats, Bryant proved to be the requisite role player, accepting a 3-and-D energizer role off the bench. Meanwhile, he may have been the most athletically gifted and promising talent on the entire roster.
Had New Orleans taken him with the 13th pick, they would have secured a 6'6" physical specimen who could help right away as a versatile wing defender and floor spacer, as well as a cornerstone whose budding talents they could have nurtured along slowly. He would have been a perfect successor for the Brandon Ingram, Herb Jones, Trey Murphy III wing development pipeline in New Orleans.
3. 40th pick: Tyrese Proctor (49th)
With their second-round pick, the Pelicans seemingly grabbed a solid 3-and-D wing with an NBA-ready body and plenty of experience at the collegiate level. However, Micah Peavy's success in the league will be entirely dependent on whether his 40 percent mark from deep in his super senior season will carry over or if his stroke will regress to the 27 percent he shot in the rest of his career.
Instead, New Orleans could have drafted Tyrese Proctor, whose 3-point shooting steadily improved in each of his three seasons at Duke. Not only would he have been a more surefire spot-up shooter for the Pelicans, but Proctor has plus size for his position and showed a steady playmaking hand for the Blue Devils. He would have filled an immediate need as a reliable backup point guard for a team desperately in need of more ball-handling and table-setting.