Former Pelicans guard calls his old team 'cursed'

The Pelicans sent Daniels to the Atlanta Hawks as part of a trade that sent Dejounte Murray to New Orleans — who fractured his hand in his first game with his new team. Daniels wasn't surprised.

"That organization's cursed," Daniels told longtime NBA writer Marc Stein. "Every year, there's something new. I'm happy I'm not there anymore."

Daniels is thriving with the Hawks. He leads the NBA by a mile with 73 steals (his closest competitor has 49) and 152 deflections (Second place has 95). He's been healthy, which wasn't the case in his two seasons with the Pelicans.

"I had like four or five ankle injuries down there as well," he told Stein. "There's something down in that water down there or something. They got hamstrings. They got knees. They got concussions and stuff as well. They get everything down there."

That's been especially true this season. New Orleans has had Zion Williamson for only six games. He's missed 226 games in his career, playing in 47 percent of the Pelicans' contests. They have also seen injuries to Murray, Brandon Ingram, All-Defensive forward Herb Jones, C.J. McCollum, Jose Alvarado and Jordan Hawkins this season, and it's only early December.

It could be a curse, or it could be the team's medical staff. New Orleans replaced the head of their medical staff before the 2023-24 season and hired a physical therapist for the first time. The Pelicans have kept team doctor Misty Suri despite the physician being dismissed by the New Orleans Saints for misdiagnosing an injury. The club used to share a training staff with the Saints, but that changed when they hired team president David Griffin.

Griffin has spent money to bring in highly regarded staffers, to no avail. The team partners with Oschner Health, a large local hospital, but none of it is keeping players off the injured list.

Perhaps Daniels is correct, and his old team does not need more doctors, but he needs a curse-breaker. Whether through an exorcism, lining the court with four-leaf clovers and rabbit's feet for luck, or a ritualistic burning of one of Williamson's knee braces, the Pelicans have to do something to reverse their bad injury fortunes. Otherwise, their fans will curse every time they read the injury reports.