The New Orleans Pelicans organization has been searching for a face of the franchise since trading Anthony Davis to the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2019 offseason. Both Brandon Ingram and Zion Williamson were expected to take the mantle. But with Ingram traded last season to the Toronto Raptors and Williamson’s consistent inability to stay healthy, the Pelicans have been left without a clear offensive hub or long-term face of the franchise.
This is why the emergence of Derik Queen feels like the start of something massive for this organization.
Now, I’m not saying Queen, as a rookie, is on Davis’ level or on a trajectory to have the career he’s had, but what I am saying is that New Orleans finally has a foundation player they can build their team around. What makes DQ the type of player you can build and mold your offense around is his ability not only to create scoring chances but also to do so for his teammates.
We see teams like the Nuggets and Rockets mold their entire offense around players like Nikola Jokić and Alperen Şengün, as they can be trusted to run the offense from the point or the nail. Queen can fit into that big man category, as he shares the ability to initiate the offense from the point and inside the arc.
Wednesday night against Jokić and the Nuggets, this skill set from Queen, or as fans are starting to call him, “The Big Easy,” was on full display.
He was carving up the Nuggets' defense in an array of different post moves, in the fastbreak, and by making reads for his teammates that the average NBA center can’t make. This resulted in a career-high 30 points for the rookie, who also grabbed eight rebounds and dished out four assists.
AD was the past, Zion was the present, Queen is the now, and the future all in one.
You rarely see a rookie big man as skilled as Queen come to the NBA and have this easy a time transitioning. If you had told me during the Summer League that he would be averaging 11.4 points, 6.4 rebounds, and 2.4 assists per game while also starting for the Pelicans, I would have called you crazy.
But that’s the reality of Queen — he just continues to get better every single time he steps foot on the court for New Orleans.
I understand some fans may still be mad that New Orleans gave up its 2026 first-round pick, unprotected, to land Queen, especially with the Pelicans being a West-worst 2-13 and the overwhelming talent at the top of the 2026 class. However, I’m going to present an idea. What if Queen stayed another year in College? And he still took the jump he’s had from his freshman season to now with the Pelicans, whose saying he wouldn’t be a top five pick? I think he would be.
Derik Queen is the future. He is the type of player you build your team around because you can run an offense through him, you can use him off the ball as a screener, and you can trust him to get you a clutch bucket at the end of a game. This team hasn’t had a young talent this special since Anthony Davis, and because of that, it’s hard not to be excited about the future.