New Orleans Pelicans: Revisiting the 2018 NBA Draft

The 2018 NBA Draft would mark the third time in four years the New Orleans Pelicans did not own a first-round draft selection. Thankfully, it was Dell Demps’ last draft as acting general manager as well.

Well, at least the team got out of Omer Asik‘s absolutely mortifying contract. You know, the player they sent a future first-round pick for a few seasons prior. It would take another first-round pick to get out of his contract, but the New Orleans Pelicans did get Nikola Mirotic back in the return package. And we liked Niko, so that’s nice.

Fortunately for the Pelicans, the pick they missed out on isn’t exactly franchise-altering. They forfeited the 22nd overall pick to the Bulls in the trade, in which they selected Chandler Hutchison out of Boise State. He’s still only 22-years-old and has time to develop into something, but for now—not a must-see talent.

And as I mentioned before, we were fond of Nikola Mirotic. He played his best stretch of basketball in the Big Easy, compiling 15.7 points and 8.2 rebounds in the 62 games he played for the organization.

Mirotic would be traded during the 2018/19 season, in what was Demps’ final move as GM of the Pelicans. He was sent to Milwaukee in a three-team trade that saw the Pelicans net Stanley Johnson and four future second-round picks. Honestly, not bad Dell Demps, way to finish strong.

After seeing how Mirotic played in the Eastern Conference Finals, this trade has really grown on me. Again, way to finish strong Dell. I’m like 65 percent sure he would’ve traded each individual second-round selection for cash considerations, but still, I’ll give him this one.

Speaking of second-round picks, the Pelicans went with Tony Carr out of Penn State with the 51st overall selection. He’s yet to play a game in the NBA, playing overseas in Italy for the entirety of the 2018/19 season according to William Guillory of NOLA.com.

And with that, my draft revisit series is concluded. There have been some great draft selections made by the organization like David West, Chris Paul, and Anthony Davis. If you want to really stretch things you could say the likes of J.R. Smith and Darren Collison as well. However, there’s been plenty of misfires like Cedric Simmons, Julian Wright, Cole Aldrich, Marcus Vinicius, James Lang, Tim Pickett, Josh Harrellson—the list, unfortunately, goes on, and on, and on.

Hope you’ve enjoyed it, now let’s focus in on June 20th and the dawn of a new era in New Orleans! Where we once had Jeff Bower, and then Dell Demps, we now have David Griffin and Trajan Langdon. The future is bright.