Pelicans’ Rookie Ignites in Close Loss to Rockets

The New Orleans Pelicans 2025 draft night was largely overshadowed by its trading up near the end of the lottery. And potentially rightfully so due to the team giving up an immensely valuable 2026 asset.

But New Orleans still managed to make it out of the draft with not one, but two talented prospects. And it won’t be out of the realm of possibility that the Pelicans massively bolstered their future at the ’25 draft. 

That prospect seemed especially possible on Tuesday, when the team’s No. 7 pick in Jeremiah Fears saw his best professional game to date versus the Houston Rockets.

Fears, most simply, did everything in the down-to-the-wire loss to Houston. He scored a team-high 20 points from the bench, doing so on decent efficiency at 53% from the field and a fine 30% from three. He also managed to tack on six rebounds — a skill he showed often in his lone collegiate season for Oklahoma — as well as four assists and two steals.

Fears’ 20 points were already impressive, but a streak of 14 points in the final frame to bring the Pelicans back into the ballgame were the cherry on top.