Now that the dust has settled on the 2025 NBA trade deadline, we can finally zoom out and look at the new landscape of the league from a different lens. The New Orleans Pelicans were originally expected to be major players at the deadline, with the team listing practically their entire roster for sale earlier in the year after losing their season to injury just a month into the campaign.
They did wind up making a major trade, sending Brandon Ingram to the Toronto Raptors in exchange for Bruce Brown Jr., Kelly Olynyk, a 2026 top-four protected first-round pick, and a future second-round selection. After all of the rumors that the Pelicans may have been heading for a complete teardown at the deadline this season and the other blockbuster trades we saw go down this week, New Orleans's moves were ultimately quite underwhelming.
It appears that Vice President David Griffin isn't quite ready to give up on this team he's built just yet, as he opted to retain his veterans in Zion Williamson, CJ McCollum, and Dejounte Murray. New Orleans may have chosen to give this core another look, but Griffin might not be around to reap the fruits of his labor. The Pelicans didn't make any groundbreaking moves at the trade deadline, but this week did draw attention to some egregious warts from the beginning of David Griffin's tenure.
Brandon Ingram trade hammers home the Pelicans' shortcomings with original Anthony Davis deal
In July 2019, New Orleans said goodbye to one of the greatest players in their franchise history when they granted Anthony Davis his trade request to the Los Angeles Lakers. It's never easy to part ways with a talent as monumental as AD, but the Pelicans' faithful weren't as devastated as the average fan losing the face of their team. That's because two months earlier, New Orleans had drawn the number one pick in the NBA Draft lottery, guaranteeing them the opportunity to select generational prospect Zion Williamson.
While Davis forced his way out of NOLA, specifically to the Lakers to join forces with LeBron James, the Pelicans weren't left high and dry — not like the Miami Heat were when they traded Jimmy Butler to the Golden State Warriors this season. In return, New Orleans received two young blue-chip players in Brandon Ingram and Lonzo Ball, another strong role player on the rise in Josh Hart, and three first-round picks, including the number-four overall pick in the upcoming draft at the time.
Rebuilding a team from scratch is never something a franchise wants to do, but doing it with two top-four draft picks and two former second-overall selections is a pretty great place to start. Fast forward six years and the Pelicans might be worse off now than they were then.
With BI now in Toronto, New Orleans no longer has any of the players they obtained in the Davis trade. As for the draft capital? David Griffin turned the fourth pick in 2021 and the eighth pick in 2022 into Jaxson Hayes, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Didi Louzada, Herb Jones, and Dyson Daniels. There's a recurring theme here. The only player from that crop still with the Pelicans is Herb.
Technically, the trade still hasn't been finalized, as LA still owes New Orleans its first-round pick this summer as the final leg of the deal. Hopefully, that selection turns into an incredible player, because the Anthony Davis return for the Pelicans isn't looking too hot. Herb Jones is a damn fine player, but only having a 35th-overall pick to show for trading a top-75 player of all time isn't exactly worth celebrating. Especially not when New Orleans will be back in the lottery for the fourth time in six seasons since trading AD. Especially not when Davis got a championship ring by fleeing the Pelicans. Especially not when Davis six years later was the centerpiece of a new trade that landed the Lakers a 25-year-old perennial MVP candidate in Luka Doncic while the Pelicans just dealt Brandon Ingram away in return for two veteran role players and one first-round pick.