New Orleans Pelicans: Upcoming Season Could Establish Potential Need for Full Rebuild

The New Orleans Pelicans seem to be one of the most unpredictable teams every season of late. While the talent on paper has been tremendous for the past several years, the franchise has faced numerous injuries and has struggled to get all of the pieces to fit together in a cohesive way. 

Prior to last season, when the Pelicans went 21-51, they had put together back-to-back seasons with at least 40 wins. Now, after various trades and roster shakeups over that span, New Orleans is as unpredictable as ever. 

The Pelicans have several impressive veterans on the roster, along with quite a few intriguing young pieces. But what does that make them, and what direction are they going?

That’s a question that needs to be answered after this upcoming season. Is New Orleans pushing to improve and be competitive for the next few years, or would the franchise be better off doing more of a hard reset?

Zion Williamson (25), Dejounte Murray (28), Trey Murphy (25), Herb Jones (26) and Jordan Poole (26) are all quality pieces who would start for nearly any team in the NBA, but all are 25 or older. In theory, this core should be good enough to make noise, even in the Western Conference, but is it enough?

In terms of young pieces, New Orleans boasts Jeremiah Fears, Derik Queen, Yves Missi and Jordan Hawkins, among others. Three of those four players were selected in the lottery of recent NBA Drafts and all four have tremendous upside. Fears is a guard with the upside to potentially build a franchise around, and Queen has star potential in the frontcourt, while Missi and Hawkins are young starting-caliber pieces. 

In a perfect world, the Pelicans could remain competitive with their veteran pieces while finding ways to integrate and develop the young guys. But that’s often easier said than done. That also could result in New Orleans getting stuck in the middle, which isn’t a great place to be. 

Being a Play-In Tournament Team and missing out on top draft talent generally isn’t ideal. To make things worse, the Pelicans traded their unprotected 2026 NBA Draft pick to the Atlanta Hawks, so they don’t control their own selection next summer. That could signal a desire to really compete this season, but at the conclusion of the 2025-26 campaign, a direction needs to be established. 

Will the upcoming season be a success and the Pelicans can build upon it going forward, or will it be a failure and a full-scale rebuild gets underway this time next year? It’s a pivotal season in New Orleans.