Derik Queen & Jeremiah Fears Giving Pelicans Fascinating Offseason Puzzle

For the New Orleans Pelicans, the rest of the season will be about evaluating their roster for the future. After another season at the bottom of the Western Conference, the Pelicans will need to make the right moves to start building a sustainable winner. The problem is that the front office may not know what the right moves are. The main reason why is the conundrum Jeremiah Fears and Derik Queen have put the franchise in.

The Pelicans are stuck between two eras. They have Dejounte Murray, Zion Williamson, and Herb Jones, who are better suited to be on win-now teams. The Pelicans didn't want to move on from any of them in the offseason or at the trade deadline. At the same time, they have two rookies they drafted in the lottery in Jeremiah Fears and Derik Queen. They believe in Queen so much that they gave up their own 2026 first-round pick to acquire him in the 2025 NBA Draft.

Should Pelicans Trade Their Veterans and Build Around Fears & Queen?

On one hand, Fears and Queen have shown enough flashes in their rookie campaigns that they deserve more investment and a chance to explore the studio space. On the other hand, they are far from sure things. There are significant defensive concerns about both players, and the Pelicans may find it difficult to build a passable defensive unit with Fears on the perimeter and Queen as the anchor of the defense. Plus, neither player can shoot. They haven't shown a knack for being effective off the ball. While they project to be dynamic on-ball creators, they are currently both inefficient players, making their offensive fit rather clumsy, as well.

Normally, this wouldn't be a problem. A team that has missed the playoffs in back-to-back years would embrace a rebuild and move on from its veterans with trade value in exchange for draft picks and young players. Unfortunately, the Pelicans don't operate this way. They traded away an unprotected first-round pick last summer after winning only 21 games the season before. They refused to listen to offers on Trey Murphy, Jones, or Williamson at the deadline. Has anything changed since then that would make them any more willing to trade them in the offseason?

Williamson and Queen's poor fit has been well-documented. They are both better positioned to play power forward and need a defense-first center next to them. The Pelicans ideally need to move on from one of them. Since they gave up so much to acquire Queen, it makes more sense for the Pels to trade Williamson. Yet, how can they be so sure about Queen after an up-and-down rookie campaign that had as many frustrating sequences as it did brilliant flashes? But if they don't trade Williamson, then they would be putting Queen in a less-than-ideal situation that could hinder his development.

If the Pelicans make Fears and Queen their starters for next season and build entirely around them, they need to be ready to be firmly in the lottery for yet another season. But, it's not like they are guaranteed to be a playoff team next season if they keep Williamson, Jones, and Murray. The smart decision is the obvious one: accepting reality and bottoming out while accumulating future assets. Whether the front office and ownership have the appetite for that, however, remains to be seen.