New Orleans Pelicans: Top 10 draft picks in franchise history

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Darren Collison New Orleans Pelicans (Photo by Layne Murdoch/NBAE via Getty Images) /

#6) Darren Collison

Alright, so Darren Collison would only play one season in New Orleans as a rookie, but it was a rather memorable one for the UCLA Bruin standout. He finished 4th in the 2009-10 season in Rookie of the Year voting and even won a single first-place vote.

Collison averaged 12.4 points and 5.7 assists in his lone season in New Orleans backing up Chris Paul before being shipped to Indiana. He was a key component in the four-team trade that sent “3 and D” specialist, Trevor Ariza, to the Crescent City.

Since then, he’s been a reliable backup point guard that minimizes turnovers, creates for others and shoots at an efficient clip.

His single-game career high in points and assists came in that 2009/10 rookie year. Against the Mavericks he went 15/21 for 35 points, and against the Warriors four games later he exploded for 20 assists.

He’d actually have seven games that year where he registered at least 14 assists and have sixteen games of 20+ points. He may not have been here long, but he had his fair share of individual success in the Big Easy. Ariza would go on to have two inefficient seasons in New Orleans, which doesn’t make this any better.