The New Orleans Pelicans' offseason wasn't great, to say the least. Will Guillory of The Athletic summed it up perfectly when he told "The Athletic NBA Daily" podcast host Andrew Schlecht that he wasn't sure where Schlecht was going when the host mentioned one of the team's "crazy" moves. There have been a few of those this summer.
Guillory ranked the craziest moves of the offseason, with the Derik Queen draft night trade with the Pelicans coming in at number one. Sending a 2026 unprotected first-round pick to the Hawks, a pick that will likely be a high lottery pick, for a player like Queen was a head-scratching move. It's still puzzling that New Orleans did it.
The trade for Jordan Poole came in second for Guillory, with the Pelicans sending CJ McCollum, Kelly Olynyk, and a second-round pick to the Wizards for Poole, Saddiq Bey, and the No. 40 pick in the draft.
You can't make the argument that New Orleans did it for financial relief, as Poole will make $31.8 million next season and $34 million in 2026-27. McCollum will make $30.6 million next season on the final year of his contract. McCollum is older, but he's more reliable than Poole.
Guillory listed Kevon Looney's two-year, $16 million deal as the third craziest move the Pelicans made this summer. He said it's not a signing that he hated, but that giving Looney multiple years after he struggled in Golden State wasn't a move that "a lot of people saw coming."
Pelicans' offseason has made headlines, but for the wrong reasons
New Orleans' reckless offseason will carry over into next summer, when Atlanta could use the pick it received from the Pelicans in the Queen deal to select a potential top-five player. That move will certainly haunt New Orleans for the next year, and probably even longer than that, depending on who that player turns out to be.
Things aren't looking up for the Pelicans, not that they have been the past few years. What the front office can do to start to get out of the current mess it's in is to trade Zion Williamson this season, capitalizing on what will hopefully be a healthy and solid start to the season. That could be another opportunity that they miscalculate, though.
There isn't much to feel hopeful about entering the upcoming season, with training camp set to begin around the summer. There's Jeremiah Fears and Queen, who it'd be unfair to write off because of the way he arrived in New Orleans. He underwent surgery on his wrist in July, so when he'll make his official debut is still up in the air.
The Pelicans desperately need their young players to pan out because not much else has.