NOLA Analytics

Genuinely, the best spin is that the longer Queen takes to make his debut and the more excuses he has when he returns, the longer fans can argue that the Pelicans haven't lost the Hawks trade yet.

The NBA season starts in 13 weeks, but fortunately, Alabama basketball starts in 15 weeks.

The Pelicans’ relevancy (what little they’ve even had) in the last 13 years has come from the fact that they won 2 lotteries, and they voluntarily gave up that upside and, in return, didn’t even get a better median outcome (in fact, they get both the lower floor and lower upside from the trade).

Zach Lowe mentioned this point on his podcast yesterday. The median outcome is that the trade is fine or is a small enough loss that it’s not a franchise ruiner. And I’m sure people will rush to defend it if that happens. But the full scope and downside risk is such a massive loss regardless.

It's one of the reasons I personally disagree with people who want them to continue pouring assets into this team. I think of this as more of a "first step to getting out of a hole is to stop digging" than "since you're already down this path, you might as well go all the way."

Using win totals and alternate win totals on DraftKings, here are the Pelicans projections for next season:

Darius Miller signed 4 contracts with the Pelicans! (He doesn't count here but still funny)

I'm not watching and, good or bad, it's just Summer League, but I once again feel for Derik Queen because, based on where he was drafted, there's a > 50% chance he's not a playoff rotation level player, but he now has top 5 pick expectations because of an awful trade by the Pelicans.

You should basically always care more about process than results anyway, but especially in meaningless games, I'd look far more into what types of shots Fears and Queen are able to generate for themselves and others and how many turnovers follow than whether or not those shots go in.

I won't be watching Summer League so there will be better people to go to for analysis, but I will issue my annual reminder that you should draw absolutely nothing away from 3P% and, to lesser extents, overall FG% and PPG from summer league. It's basically all going to be variance.

Convince my potential Day 2 pick to stay for his senior season then bench him for his senior year after I portal someone younger and faster.

Here's the current full NBA snapshot with some initial line movements overnight. Pelicans now down to 13th in the West and alone at the 6th lowest win total in the NBA at 31.5 wins.

Looks like they were pretty quickly bet up to 34.5

The Pelicans open with a win total of 32.5 on DraftKings.

That’s tied with Portland for 12th in the West and tied with Portland, Chicago, and Toronto for the 6th lowest in the NBA.

I'd bet it also has something to do with: if you move down a few spots, you can probably still draft someone you ranked in an equivalent tier or just below. If you slide down significantly, you're accepting that your immediate pick is going to be a significantly worse level of prospect.

It's a thing in the NFL where, even though trading down is +EV, and even though the further you trade down, the more +EV it is, teams are still reluctant to move very far down. It's why, if a team trades down from, say, 9, they usually do so for something in low-mid teens, not 20's.

Even though the 2026 pick is objectively more valuable than a pick outside the top 10 this year, I bet Chicago and Portland would've been more willing to accept if the Pelicans had the 14th pick instead (so 14 and 23). That way, it's a small slide and an extra pick for immediate gratification.

I think it's a principal agent issue. Even if it's an objectively great deal, front offices of teams that had losing records have to come out and explain to fans that they technically don't even get a lottery pick for next season. Instead, they get the pick of a team that won 50 games.

The saddest part of JV to the Nuggets is that we lose out on Jokic vs JV games.

Since JV was traded to the Pelicans, Jokic has averaged 32-14-11 on 70% True Shooting in games vs JV.

He's 27-13-9 on 63% True Shooting in all other games.

That said, the fact that it’s the year of our lord 2025 and the Pelicans are still overpaying for guys and citing “leadership” made me chuckle.

I can tell this is beginning because I feel absolutely nothing towards the Pelicans making yet another bad move.

You can tell who understands probability by how they talk about this trade down the road. The median outcome is that the Pelicans don’t lose a ton of value here (or better). But the tail outcomes are completely stacked against the Pels and show an organization that doesn’t understand so.

~ How often does each team "easily win" trade (hard to argue other team came out better):
Pelicans: 13%
Hawks: 42%

~ How often does each team "clearly win" trade (impossible to argue anything but one team won):
Pelicans: 5%
Hawks: 25%

Ran through some rough simulations on the Pelicans/Hawks trade using historical draft pick data and weighted estimates on where the 2026 Pelicans pick falls:

~ How often does each team "win" trade:
Pelicans: 25%
Hawks: 60%

I continue to worry about a Saints-style snowballing form here.

The Pelicans made 3 -EV trades within 8 days in part to acquire more/better picks this draft since Troy Weaver liked it.

They now have 0 picks next year so what happens if/when Weaver likes the draft but has no picks?

Well hey, go Bucks and go Mark Sears

This feels like a good time to remind everyone that the Pelicans were -51 last year in the 836 minutes when at least two of Zion, Trey, and Herb were on the court together.

That's an average of -3.5/game which would've ranked 7th worst in the NBA last season.

Even if you take the Pelicans at their belief that the 2026 pick just isn't valuable because both NOP and MIL will be in the playoffs, the fact that every other team views it as a future top 10 pick with #1 upside means you should've been able to do so much better than just moving up from 23 to 13.

I personally don't buy how a guy who was available at #13 one year can be spun as being a much more highly rated player in what people are pretty confident is a better draft class next year.

Let alone that they also essentially gave up the Pacers pick next year in this trade as well.

What it costs a normal team to outright trade for a top 10 pick (albeit in a bad draft so probably commensurate value with #13 last night) vs what it costs the Pelicans to move up 10 spots.