Derik Queen Is a Future Star, but Pelicans Still Made a Huge Mistake With the Trade

There is no reason to put the burden of the Pelicans' bad draft-day trade on Derik Queen.

Stephen Lew-Imagn Images

Derik Queen had the best game of his young career on Monday night, putting up 33 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists, and four blocks on 11/15 shooting from the field in 33 minutes of action. He brought the Pelicans back into the game with an incredible second-half display and was unstoppable until the final buzzer. New Orleans still came up short in the 135-132 loss to the Spurs, but it was a hard-fought battle that fans will go home happy about.

Every time Queen has a big game, the attention immediately turns to the draft-day trade the Pelicans made to acquire him. While this is an understandable reaction, it is an utterly irrelevant exercise. There is nothing Queen can do this season or in his career that will make that trade a good one for the Pelicans. Queen is one of the best rookies in the league, has the potential to be a future star, and the Pelicans absolutely nailed that pick. All of that can be true even while we acknowledge how terrible the Pelicans' process was and how they paid way more than they should have in that deal.

Derik Queen Is the Real Deal

As a reminder, the Pelicans moved up from No. 23 pick to No. 13 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft to select Queen. They gave the Hawks an unprotected 2026 first-round pick in exchange. This pick will be the most favorable one between New Orleans and Milwaukee, suggesting that the Hawks will almost certainly get a high lottery pick since neither team is currently headed for the postseason. The Hawks selected Asa Newell with the 23rd-overall pick, but similar to Queen's situation, how he plays doesn't matter in the analysis of the trade.

The Pelicans currently have the worst record in the NBA, meaning that there is over a 50% chance that they will give a top-four pick to the Hawks. To protect against the worst-case scenarios, teams rarely give up unprotected picks. The Pelicans could and should have at least protected their pick. Were the Hawks really going to turn down a top-four protected first-round pick from the Pels to move down ten slots in the draft?

The value proposition of giving up a future lottery pick just to move up from No. 23 pick to No. 13 is never going to be in your favor. If the Pels were that high on Queen, they could have selected him with the seventh-overall pick that they used on Jeremieah Fears. They could have protected the pick. They could have gotten more from the Hawks in return. They could have kept the No. 23 selection and just done the trade with the future first-round pick. They could have given a pick in a later draft when they expect the Pelicans to be better.

There were so many ways they could have still had Derik Queen that didn't involve giving up the most valuable traded pick out there.

There is a reason the entire league was shocked when they heard of the trade on draft day. It was a complete misevaluation of the trade value of moving up ten spots and where the Pelicans were in the pecking order of the league. Yet, it's not fair to judge Derik Queen based on this trade. The media needs to stop asking the question: How good does Derik Queen have to be to justify that trade? Instead, just enjoy the ride.