Pelicans summer trades looking ugly so far

There are three winless NBA teams 10 days into the 2025-26 season. The New Orleans Pelicans had the rights to two of those teams' first-round picks in 2026, but they traded away both.

The Brooklyn Nets have the league's worst record at 0-5, with a -14 point differential. But the Pelicans aren't far behind at 0-4, getting outscored by an average of 19 points per game. Joining them among the winless are the Indiana Pacers, currently decimated by injuries to their guards.

New Orleans traded all their 2026 draft capital in June

Before this season, the Pelicans owned the Pacers' 2026 first-rounder, originally traded to the Toronto Raptors in a deal for Pascal Siakam, then routed to the Pelicans when Toronto traded for Brandon Ingram last season. However, they traded the pick back to the Pacers for their 2025 first, in a surprising move that happened while Indiana was playing in the NBA Finals.

New Orleans traded the Pacers' No. 23 pick to the Atlanta Hawks in order to acquire No. 13 and draft Maryland big man Derik Queen. To move up 10 spots, the Pelicans sent the Hawks their own 2026 first-rounder, which includes the right to swap the pick for that of the Milwaukee Bucks.

The 21-year-old Queen could still emerge as a quality player, though he's had a rough start to his career, averaging 8.5 points and 5.5 rebounds through four games, along with 1.3 turnovers. Still, if the Pacers' pick or their own ends up at the top of the draft lottery, that's a very high price to pay — without even considering they also gave up No. 23.

Joe Dumars and Troy Weaver have poor track records

The Pelicans hired Joe Dumars as a executive vice president of basketball operations and Troy Weaver as his assistant in April, heading up basketball operations above general manager Bryson Graham. That's two executives with ties to the Detroit Pistons, a team that hasn't been a paragon of excellence in recent years, going 16 seasons without winning a playoff game before this April.

Dumars won a championship with the Pistons in 2004, but the team foundered in the later years of his tenure, which went from 2000-14. In Weaver's four years running the Pistons, they went 74-244 (.233) Dumars also worked as an advisor for the Sacramento Kings from 2019-22 — they went 92-134 (.407).

Neither man has demonstrated strong decision-making or talent evaluation recently, aside from Weaver drafting All-Star Cade Cunningham in 2022 — though Cunningham was the consensus top pick that year.

Giving up a first-round pick to move up only 10 slots is a lot, particularly when it only gets the team into the late lottery. That might be a justifiable price if you're moving from No. 13 to No. 3, but No. 23 to No. 13 is not nearly as dramatic.

It simply reflects a misunderstanding of the team they inherited. The Pelicans were unlucky with injuries in 2024-25, but they also went 21-61. That's not exactly a team on the brink of contention. The Pelicans also took on additional money to add Jordan Poole and Saddiq Bey, indicating the front office thought the team would be good this season.

They appear to be quite bad. If they remain this bad, and the Pacers keep struggling, Pelicans fans may rue the trades their team made in June for a long time.