Zion Williamson of the New Orleans Pelicans - albeit perhaps not for much longer.
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PHOENIX, ARIZONA - FEBRUARY 27: Zion Williamson #1 of the New Orleans Pelicans looks on during the fourth quarter of the game against the Phoenix Suns at PHX Arena on February 27, 2025 in Phoenix, Arizona. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2025 NBAE (Photo by Jeremy Chen/Getty Images)
The New Orleans Pelicans had plans to make the playoffs in the 2024-25 NBA season. They demonstrated this when they traded young for old last June, moving young guard Dyson Daniels to the Atlanta Hawks for his veteran equivalent in Dejounte Murray, having finished the 2023-24 season with a 49-33 record, winning a spot in the postseason through the play-in tournament.
Unfortunately, everything went wrong. Badly wrong.
The Pelicans were riddled with injuries in the front end of their rotation, using 25 different players throughout the course of the season and starting 20, and finished second-last in the Western Conference with a lowly 21-61 record. Compounding the problem, all those losses did not result in a lottery win. The Pelicans slipped all the way to only the seventh pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, not the saving grace they were hoping for. And they even had to watch Daniels break out without them.
To that end, changes are needed. And changes, it appears, will be forthcoming.
Everything Is On The Table
In his latest projected mock draft, Kevin O’Connor of Yahoo! Sports reports that “everyone” is currently available on the Pelicans. While he has the Pelicans drafting Kon Knueppel of Duke if they keep the seventh pick, that pick could well be on the move – including in a trade of Williamson.
There are no untouchables in New Orleans. League sources say the Pelicans are gauging the market for everyone on their roster. They very well could end up keeping their core pieces, namely Zion Williamson, but it appears the Pelicans are looking into taking different paths this summer depending on what opportunities become available.
– Kevin O’Connor
This is not the first time Zion’s name has been mentioned as a trade target. As soon as the season was over, his name was being floated, the most obvious starting point for reformation considering his long-standing as the supposed foundational piece, a pedestal from which he has only disappointed.
Of the 472 regular season games that the Pelicans have played since drafting Zion with the first overall pick back in the 2019 NBA Draft, Zion has played only 214 of them, missing significant time in three of his six seasons and missing one season altogether. They cannot rely on him. So it seems they will stop attempting to.
Pelicans Already Shaking Up Management
The Pelicans have changed their front office situation already since the season ended. Long-time executive vice president of basketball operations David Griffin was fired after six seasons, to be replaced by Joe Dumars. The former Detroit Pistons basketball operations president – and winner of the 2002-23 Executive of the Year award – is back in charge of an NBA team for the first time since leaving the Pistons in 2014, and inherits a roster of players he did not acquire. Therefore, he is not biased by loyalties.
This might explain why even the few Pelicans who have been unmitigated successes are seemingly having their value gauged. Specifically, the young forward duo of Herb Jones and Trey Murphy III have been excellent players for the Pelicans, and both are now tied in to very team-friendly contracts.
This in turn should give them excellent trade value, and so if a house-cleaning is ordered by the new staff, Jones and Murphy III’s names should be expected to be sought after. Not because they did anything to deserve to go, but because selling high should be the aim of any auction. It presumably also includes the Pelicans’ 2024 first-round pick, Yves Missi, the only Pelican to appear in more than 66 games last season and whose development as a paint presence represented the main bright spot in a floundering campaign.
Missi is good, so Missi may command value. Dumars, it seems, is at least asking that question.
Pelicans Plan To Begin Again
Good as they are, none of Missi, Murphy III or Jones figure to be front-line NBA superstars. They are excellent role players, and Missi’s ceiling looks high, but a team starting again needs a foundation stone or two. For the longest time, the Pelicans thought that they had one in Zion. But with a lost season and a new regime comes a new perspective.
Fool me onee, shame on you. Fool me every season since 2019, however, and it might be time for a reappraisal.