The 2025 offseason was one filled with change and different faces for the New Orleans Pelicans. It started with the decision to end David Griffin’s 6-year tenure as the President of Basketball Operations and replace him with 3-time NBA champion and Louisiana native Joe Dumars. After Dumars' arrival, new faces were brought in as his move involved acquiring Jordan Poole from the Washington Wizards, as well as Saddiq Bey. He also decided to sign three-time NBA champion Kevon Looney in free agency.
However, his most significant move was on draft night when he decided to draft Oklahoma Sooners freshman guard Jeremiah Fears with the 7th overall pick and trade for the draft rights to Maryland big man Derik Queen.
While some fans may feel the decision to trade up for Queen could impact the future of the franchise more than drafting Fears, I’m here to tell you why it’s actually the other way around.
Although Queen may initially receive more reps than Fears due to the talent ahead of him being weaker, no position can have a more profound long-term impact on a franchise than an elite point guard.
He has the potential to become a franchise-changing lead guard, but he also has a lot of work to do before I’d fully believe he reaches that potential. This pick was a gamble and could alter the path that this Pelicans team goes down the next 5-10 years.
Could Fears change the team's trajectory like a franchise legend from the past?
Looking back to the New Orleans teams back in the early 2000s, they were really bad until they drafted Chris Paul in the 2005 draft. CP3 came in and completely altered the trajectory of the franchise from the moment he got there to the moment he left. This is the same type of impact Fears could have for the Pelicans over the next 5-10 years.
With Dumars coming in this summer, he was trying to lay a foundation for the next several years, which is why he drafted Fears. The goal was to have his long-term answer at guard, no matter what path the franchise went down.
So, whether this season ends in disaster like last year did or it ends up being a success, Fears will be here to usher in whatever era of Pelicans basketball is ahead.
Drafting Fears was definitely a gamble, as he does have his fair share of question marks when it comes to turnover, defense, and three-point shooting. But his raw talent as a scorer and playmaker, combined with his swagger, made him a risk worth taking for the Pelicans.
The life cycle of an NBA GM is short, and Dumars had to take some type of risk to help revive the Pelicans franchise, so we will just have to wait and see if it was the right risk or the wrong one.