New Orleans Pelicans Sign Veteran Role Player

The New Orleans Pelicans have made another move this offseason. According to ESPN’s Shams Charania, the team has signed 6-foot-9 Forward Jalen McDaniels to a contract. How will this signing work out for both sides?

The Pelicans’ Bizarre Offseason Strategy

Before we dive into why McDaniels might actually be a decent pickup, let’s talk about the elephant in the Smoothie King Center. The Pelicans have had an offseason that would make even the most seasoned NBA executives scratch their heads in confusion.

First, they shipped off CJ McCollum and Kelly Olynyk to Washington for Jordan Poole and Saddiq Bey. But then came the real head-scratcher. During the 2025 NBA Draft, the Pelicans made what can only be described as a panic move that would make even the most desperate fantasy football manager cringe. They traded their 2026 first-round pick plus the 23rd pick to Atlanta just to move up to 13th and grab Derik Queen.

Bill Simmons called it “one of the five dumbest trades of this decade,” and honestly, that might be generous. When you are a team that seems destined to compete for lottery balls rather than championships, trading away future picks is like selling your umbrella because it is not raining right now.

Why McDaniels Could Actually Work Out

Now, back to the signing. McDaniels isn’t going to sell jerseys or get fans rushing to StubHub, but there’s actually some method to this particular madness. The 27-year-old has bounced around more than a beach ball at a Saints game, playing for Charlotte, Philadelphia, Toronto, and Washington over his six-year career.

McDaniels isn’t completely hopeless, though. During the 2022-23 season with Charlotte, he put up respectable numbers: 10.6 points, 4.8 rebounds, 2.0 assists, and 1.2 steals per game. Those aren’t All-Star numbers, but they’re “decent bench guy who won’t completely embarrass you” numbers.

The problem is that since leaving Charlotte, he has been about as consistent as Louisiana weather in summer. His stint with Washington last season was particularly brutal. He played just four games before being shipped off to the G-League.

What This Signing Really Means

Let’s be brutally honest about what the Pelicans are doing here. This isn’t about making a playoff push or building a championship contender. This is about finding warm bodies who can play basketball at an NBA level while their young guys develop and their injury-prone stars figure out how to stay healthy.

McDaniels represents the kind of low-risk, potentially-medium-reward signing that rebuilding teams make when they are looking for answers. He’s got the physical tools, 6’9″ with decent athleticism, and has shown flashes of competence in the past. If he can recapture even half of what he showed in Charlotte, the Pelicans will look smart. If he doesn’t? Well, it’s not like they mortgaged their future for him.

The Bigger Picture For New Orleans

The McDaniels signing is really just a footnote in what’s shaping up to be a fascinating disaster of a season for the Pelicans. This is a team that seems to be rebuilding and competing simultaneously, which is like trying to renovate your house while hosting a dinner party.

They have promising young talent in Jeremiah Fears and Queen (despite overpaying for the latter), they’ve added veteran presence with Kevon Looney, and now they’re taking flyers on reclamation projects. It is a strategy that might work if everything goes right, but let’s just say “everything going right” isn’t exactly the tea’s specialty.

The real test will be whether McDaniels can stay healthy and motivated enough to contribute meaningful minutes. His career has been a series of “what ifs” and false starts, but sometimes a change of scenery is exactly what a player needs to turn things around.

Final Thoughts

Nobody is going to confuse this signing with landing a superstar, but it is exactly the kind of move the Pelicans need to be making right now. They are not good enough to compete with the elite teams in the West, but they’re not quite bad enough to tank effectively either.

McDaniels gives them another body, another option, and another chance to find a diamond in the rough. In a league where depth matters and you never know when injuries will strike, having a guy who can potentially give you 15-20 decent minutes per game is valuable. Will this signing move the needle for New Orleans? Probably not. But in a season where expectations are already lower than the French Quarter after a heavy rain, sometimes that is good enough.