There's no denying that the 2024-25 NBA season was a disastrous affair for the New Orleans Pelicans. After getting a career-high 70 regular-season games from Zion Williamson the year prior, a slimmed-down Big Z in the summer, and a new All-Star point guard in Dejounte Murray, the Pelicans were hoping to build upon their 49-33 record from 2023-24. Instead, injuries took out their entire core roster in the early season, and they plummeted down the standings, finishing just 21-61, good for 14th in the Western Conference.
On the bright side, at least the Pelicans chose a good year to have a franchise collapse. New Orleans's future now hinges on the results of the draft lottery, which will determine if they'll land a generational talent like Cooper Flagg or Dylan Harper or have to shoot craps with some of the lesser prospects like Duke's Khaman Maluach or Baylor's VJ Edgecombe.
Had the Pelicans fallen apart in the 2023-24 campaign, they would have been heading to the lottery with players like Zaccharie Risacher or Alex Sarr representing the top prizes. Instead, New Orleans has an outside chance of lucking into Cooper Flagg, one of the more surefire prospects in recent NBA history. However, landing the number one pick won't be without a possible drawback for the Pelicans.
The Pelicans getting the first-overall pick will force them to trade Zion Williamson
New Orleans has been mulling over the idea of trading Zion Williamson since at least before this past season's trade deadline. Heading into February, the Pelicans had marked practically their entire roster as available in deals, including the former 2019 number-one pick. While he stayed in the Bayou through the deadline, his future with the team still wasn't secured.
Now, his status with the team is as precarious as it's ever been. It's been rumored that Joe Dumars, who the Pelicans recently hired to be their new executive vice president of basketball operations after firing David Griffin to begin the offseason, was given a mandate from New Orleans ownership to trade Zion Williamson at some point.
Dumars, though, has been resistant to the idea. He's reportedly had positive talks with Z. Of course, none of this will matter if the Benson Family and the rest of the Pelicans' top brass insist on parting ways with Williamson.
Perhaps Dumars is simply biding time until the draft, when he'll have a better idea of what direction he'll want to take with the team. Surely, landing one of the top prospects will significantly sway how he'll want to flesh out the rest of the roster. Hopefully he didn't make any concrete promises to Zion, because drawing the first pick should convince even Dumars to cut bait with Williamson.
After all, Cooper Flagg is projected to be at his best playing power forward in the NBA — Zion's primary position. Not only will there be overlap between Flagg and Williamson, but Trey Murphy III and Herb Jones are arguably both at their best at the four spot, too. Then, there are still others like Kelly Olynyk to worry about. Between the positional overlap and the franchise's teetering feelings on Zion to begin with, the Pelicans getting the number one pick should be the final nail in the coffin for Williamson's time in New Orleans.