The New Orleans Pelicans have done few things right this summer, but their approach to Saddiq Bey's contract situation looked perfect. That was until they agreed to a three-year, $55 million extension, as reported by ESPN's Shams Charania.
Few positives from the Pelicans' 2025-26 season were as encouraging as Bey. While the team struggled, winning just 26 games, Bey, coming off a year-long hiatus where he was rehabbing an ACL tear, had the best season of his career. Last season he averaged 17.7 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 2.5 assists, while shooting 36.7 percent from three through 72 games. He looked healthy, polished, and like someone who deserves to be a true building block no matter what path the franchise takes next.
With Bey in the final year of his deal, extension talks were expected, and it is a win for the Pelicans to sign him to a deal below a $20 million annual salary. Bey was eligible for a max of four years at $93 million, so things could have been worse, but the Pelicans are now playing a very risky game.
The Pelicans didn't learn from their mistakes
The main reason I was against the idea of Joe Dumars extending Bey going into next season is because of Herb Jones. If you need a reminder, Herb Jones received a three-year extension in Joe Dumars’ first offseason with the team, and to this point, that move hasn’t aged well. Jones still has one more year on his original deal before his three-year, $67-plus million deal kicks in, and he is coming off a brutal offensive campaign in 2025-26. Jones went from being an incredibly valuable two-way wing to someone who could be on his way to being viewed as a bad contract.
The main reason for this is that the Pelicans saw potential and, even after a bad year, bet on Jones bouncing back and being that top-five defender in the world he once was. That bet hasn’t paid off, and the Pelicans could pay for it long-term.
That’s the fear with extending Bey: even though he had an awesome year last season, what if he goes back to being a decent role player in 2026-27 and you just extended him? New Orleans isn’t a place to be handing out long-term deals unless they know exactly what a player is, and they just don’t know with Bey at this point in time.
Sure, there is a counterargument that if they wait and Bey puts together another strong year, his price could have become way higher. But they’re better off with that happening and having to pay him a little more than extending someone, and then their production falls off a cliff.
As a small market, it’s hard not to want to extend players when they have a strong season, especially someone who has embraced New Orleans the way Bey did in one year. However, something small-market teams need to be careful with is handing out contracts that they aren’t 100 percent sure of because they don’t have the ability to attract free agents the way big-market teams do.
So while waiting to extend Bey could've cost the Pelicans more money down the road, it could've also saved them from being tied to a potentially bad contract. I'm not saying this is a bad move, but it's definitely a huge bet on an unproven core and player.
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