New Orleans looks like the NBA’s worst team. Don’t forget they traded 2 potential top 2026 picks
Things couldn’t get any worse this season for the New Orleans Pelicanswho recently fell to 0-4 away from home loss to the Denver Nuggetsthe game DeAndre Jordan started in 2025. The Pelicans have managed to stay relatively healthy through the first week of the year, but they still don’t look anywhere near a contending team, let alone a contending team in the West.
At least the team could theoretically bottom out and get the top pick in next year’s draft, right?
Wrong, thanks to a a series of disastrous decisions made by general manager Joe Dumars during the offseason, including trading a 2026 first-round pick to the Indiana Pacers for the No. 23 pick in this year’s draft, before trading that pick and an unprotected 2026 pick swap with the Milwaukee Bucks to the Atlanta Hawks to move Derrick Quinn this year as well.
In other words, the Pelicans could go 0-82 this year, and not be able to cash in on that ineptitude with their own draft pick. Meanwhile, the team could also benefit from holding on to the Pacers’ No. 1 pick, given that Indiana is now without Tyrese Halliburton and is off to a winless start to 2025-26.
Terrible place from Pelican
Overall, there’s a legitimate argument to be made that the Pelicans are in the worst place a professional sports organization could be, riddled with expensive contracts, unreliable “star” players and not much future draft assets.
The most obvious short-term solution for the Pelicans would be to trade Zaon Williamson and try to get some draft help back, but at this point it’s unclear how much the former No. 1 overall pick would even bring, given his well-chronicled injury problems that have already started to flare up this year.
Things don’t get any easier from here for New Orleans, as they next take the floor on Friday night against the Los Angeles Clippers.
2025-10-30 16:43:00
