With the 2025-26 season concluding and the 2026 offseason officially underway for the New Orleans Pelicans, the expectation was that major changes were on the way. With back-to-back sub-30-win seasons and a mixed-bag roster that blends the front office's core with the new players brought in last summer, it felt like a rebuild was coming. However, in Joe Dumars' end-of-season press conference, where he addressed the team's future and offseason plans, it appears the Pelicans intend to do the opposite.
During Dumars' time with the media, he crushed any hope of New Orleans entering a rebuild, reiterating that the team feels it is close and that it is missing consistency and toughness. He also doubled down on the fact that the Pelicans will continue to invest in Zion Williamson for the foreseeable future.
"Even when you say no to people, within two hours its out you had conversations about trading for Zion. We have no intentions of doing that. We are going into the offseason looking forward to Zion coming back next year and playing great again"
— Pelicans Film Room (@PelsFilmRoom) April 14, 2026
-- Joe Dumars on Zion Williamson pic.twitter.com/B4Lu5HvQle
"I was really proud of him this year... I know I saw a guy that there were several times I thought we wouldn't have him that night and he said no, I'm coming. I'm gonna show up"
— Pelicans Film Room (@PelsFilmRoom) April 14, 2026
-- Joe Dumars tells two stories about Zion's season pic.twitter.com/Td94InwSTb
This scenario was the worst-case scenario for New Orleans, as the idea of this group being a competitive playoff-level team after two straight years of losing 55+ games is delusional.
Dumars' commitment to this core may set the Pelicans back a decade
When you look at the landscape of the modern NBA to build a serious contender, especially in the Western Conference, you need a top 10 or fringe top 10 player on your roster. The Pelicans don't have that, and in all honesty, no one on this team will probably ever reach that level. For other front offices, this would be a sign to sell off win-now assets, embrace a youth movement, and build a new identity. But for Dumars and Troy Weaver, it means doubling down and wasting another year of the fans' time.
The whole reason the Pelicans overhauled their front office after the 2024-25 season was that they had grown complacent and hesitated to shake things up or shift direction. When Dumars came in, he talked about building something fans could be proud of and invested in. So naturally, many of us thought that meant a roster overhaul was on the way. But now, with the Pelicans once again recommitted to a core that began to take shape in 2019, it makes you wonder why they even made a front-office change in the first place.
Zion is coming off an incredible year that saw him balance the lowest usage of his career while playing the second-most games he’s played in a season and still deliver elite offensive production.
Opposing GMs could easily convince themselves to buy in on Zion after he played 62 games, averaging 21.0 points, 5.7 rebounds, and 3.2 assists per game. But instead of pulling the trigger and entering a rebuild with Jeremiah Fears and Derik Queen at the helm, Dumars is deciding to run back a project that fans have already watched fail for nearly a decade.
There's a reason the Pelicans have become a team that the rest of the NBA landscape sits back and laughs at, because what other team would continue to put fans through this?
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