Prior to Derik Queen undergoing surgery to repair a torn scapholunate ligament in his left wrist, he was facing a ton of criticism for his play during summer league. Many criticized Queen for his poor turnovers and mediocre effort on the defensive end. This trend continued on a recent episode of the Game Theory Podcast, where Sam Vecenie of The Athletic had this to say about Queen's poor performance in Vegas.
"Probably the worst defensive player I saw at summer league".
These comments from Vecenie may sound harsh, but they are also extremely fair. He called out Queen for not hustling back and being extremely poor defensively, especially in transition. These aren't new criticisms, as they were an issue during parts of his collegiate career at Maryland, and they have also been brought up by me and other members of the Pelicans media.
To come to Queen's defense, part of the reason he struggled on the defensive end was that most of the summer league's head coach, Corey Brewer, was playing him out of position. Queen has only ever played center and was thrown into summer league, having to share the floor with Yves Missi. This was a huge reason why his positioning was off and why he was getting exposed on the perimeter, as he never really had to guard any position other than the five.
Although that is part of the problem, as Queen did a much better job as a one-on-one defender when he was the only big man on the floor, the issues with hustling back on defense were still there.
Can he prove his hater wrong?
In all honesty, I don't know if there are two guys in the 2025 NBA draft class with more confidence in themselves than Derik Queena and Jeremiah Fears. Going back to the rookies' introductory press conference, Queen was asked about the criticism surrounding the Pelicans' decision to trade up for him, and his response was awesome.
"I'm just saying here, I don't think nobody in that class better than me."
This type of confidence tells me one thing: Queen is going to put in the necessary work to prove all his haters wrong, and the Pelicans just need to give him the trust and time to do that.
Between his time in high school and his first game at Maryland, Queen put in work to get in better shape, so he was ready for college basketball. So who's to say he can't do the same thing when coming to the NBA?
I guarantee you Queen is making note of all the criticism he's faced from the time he was drafted to the end of his play in the summer league and is going to make sure he silences all his doubters.