Joe Dumars needed just 90 minutes Wednesday night to show just how aggressive he’s going to be as Pelicans’ executive vice president of operations.
The night started with Dumars selecting Oklahoma guard Jeremiah Fears with the No. 7 pick in the NBA draft.
Fears sported two sparkling chains around his neck. The medallion on was a zero, the number Fears wore in college. The other medallion displayed his last name. Collectively, the two chains said "no fears," two words that very well could have also summed up Dumars on this night.
Thirty minutes after drafting Fears, Dumars made a deal.
The Pelicans traded their No. 23 pick to the Atlanta Hawks to move up to the No. 13 spot to select forward Derik Queen from Maryland.
“It’s crazy,” Dumars said. “We felt like we were going to have to choose between these two guys the whole night. To end up getting both of them was just really exciting for us.”
The Pelicans paid what many will say is a hefty price to get Queen. In addition to the No. 23 pick, the Pels surrendered their first round pick in 2026.
“When you have chance to get two lottery picks in one draft, you’re accounting for the following year,” Dumars said. “… When you identify a player that you think can be one of the foundations here, you go and get him. That’s what we did. We targeted Queen. We thought he could be a heckuva addition here and we were really aggressive about going to get Queen in this draft.”
Being aggressive is the only way Dumars knows.
It's the way the Bad Boy Pistons played in the late 80’s and early 90’s when Dumars was in his heyday as a guard on back-to-back NBA championship teams. And it’s the way he operated when he was in charge of the Pistons’ team he built that won an NBA title in 2004. And it’s apparently the way he’ll continue to be in his role with the Pelicans.
“That’s the only way I’ve ever had success in this league,” Dumars said. “I’ve been around aggressive teams my entire life. That has always served well. I thought the two teams in the Finals (the Oklahoma City Thunder and Indiana Pacers) exemplified that. They were aggressive on both ends of the court. They defended like heck. They pushed the ball. Those are the elements that win. So we want to be aggressive at all times.”
And that includes in his decision making.
This time a week ago, the Pelicans only had the No. 7 pick in the draft. But Dumars made a deal with the Pacers to get the No. 23 pick and gave the Pacers back their own 2026 first-round pick. That extra pick ended up being the chess piece Dumars needed to get the chess piece he really wanted: the Queen. Derik Queen.
“When I got here, we had just the seventh pick and I was like ’we don’t have enough assets to move around in the draft,’” Dumars said. “So we had to get that asset. We had to get that asset and put it into this draft and hope that we had a chance to do what we did tonight.”
Once Dumars drafted Fears with the No. 7 pick, he began looking for a trade two picks later.
“We started from nine all the way until we got a deal,” Dumars said. “You don’t pull the trigger on the asset next year until you get that deal. Otherwise, you keep it.”
There was a contingency plan if he didn’t find a deal.
“If you get stuck at No. 23, you better have a handful of guys you like,” Dumar said. “And we did.”
There were guys they liked. But Queen is who they really coveted.
“It shows how much they wanted me and how much they believe in me," Queen said. "I’m just ready to show them they got their money’s worth and ready to put on for the Pelicans.”
If Queen turns out to be the lottery pick type talent that Dumars and his right-hand man Troy Weaver project him to be, the trade to move up and get him will be viewed as brilliant. If he doesn’t pan out, it’ll be a draft night trade that Dumars will be criticized about for years to come, especially this time next year when the Pelicans are sitting out the first round of the draft.
Dumars is banking on Queen living up to expectations.
“I like tough guys,” Dumars said. “And you have to have an IQ. You can’t just be tough and nothing else. I put Queen’s IQ of the game up against anybody in this draft.”
Dumars’ offers equally high praise for Fears.
“Super confident, but not arrogant and not cocky,” Dumars said. “You need some of that to be good in this league. You’ve got to think ‘I’m him’ and he does. I like that about him. But I (also) like his skillset. Just his ability to get anywhere on the court like that, is a unique ability.”
Dumars has one pick in the second round of the draft, which will be held Thursday night. That pick was acquired Tuesday in a trade that sent CJ McCollum and Kelly Olynyk and a second round pick in 2026 to the Washington Wizards in exchange for Jordan Poole and Saddiq Bey.
“One of the thing you want to do when you’re building out a team, whenever you have these tempo moments – the draft, free agency, trade deadline - it’s an opportunity to make a statement about who you are as a team and what you’re going to be,” Dumars said.
And what exactly are the Pelicans going to be?
Aggressive.
“We want to be an aggressive team,” Dumars said. “We are going to be aggressive in this front office. We want our players to be aggressive. We want our approach to be aggressive. We want to show up. We’re going to show up for the run. We have 82 runs. We don’t have to be loud. We don’t have to bang our chests. But we intend to be there.”