Pelicans Continue to Amaze NBA Watchers With Their Offseason

Quiet summers seem to be a thing of the past in the NBA. Gone are the days when a team could largely avoid making moves and still be considered a contender the next season. The New Orleans Pelicans are coming off back-to-back sub-30 win seasons, so they would seem like a prime candidate for sweeping changes to the current roster.

Instead, the Pelicans have been one of the quietest teams in the league, much to the chagrin of a fanbase wanting to see a consistent winner, and outsiders wondering exactly what the team’s long-term goals are.

Outside of re-signing 37-year-old center DeAndre Jordan and adding second-round draft pick Jaron Pierre Jr., New Orleans made no roster additions to a team that won just 26 games last season. Bringing back the same core without addressing fundamental flaws sends a worrying message to frustrated fans; either the front office grossly overvalues its current depth chart or lacks the foresight to engineer meaningful trades.

Pelicans' Offseason Is Raising a Ton of Eyebrows Around the NBA

NBA insider John Hollinger recently wrote a piece encapsulating the confusion surrounding the organization by those on the outside looking in.

"The league’s most puzzling franchise continues to amaze onlookers”, Hollinger candidly wrote. He continued, “I would be hard-pressed to name a worse-performing team in recent history that brought back the exact same roster from a year earlier……..But what really amazed people was not the Pelicans’ summer-league choices, but their roster moves … or lack thereof."

The Pelicans had a desperate need for viable size in the middle and outside shooting. None of those issues were addressed up to this point in the offseason.

New Orleans took a swing and a miss last offseason after signing veteran center Kevon Looney to a two-year deal. Looney’s lone season with the Pelicans was a disaster, with the three-time NBA champion appearing in just 21 games and averaging 2.8 points per game. The team declined his second-year option, saving them approximately $8 million in salary cap space.

With Looney gone, third-year center Yves Missi and the aging DeAndre Jordan are the team's only true traditional bigs. President of basketball operations Joe Dumars told reporters this summer he envisions both Zion Williamson and Derik Queen getting plenty of playing time together.

Expecting a Williamson-Queen frontcourt to hold down the paint is a massive defensive gamble. The team had one of the worst defensive ratings when the duo shared the court last season. Both require a rim-protecting, rebounding frontcourt teammate to compensate for their defensive limitations, yet no such anchor was brought in. Ditto for bringing in a sharpshooter to help with the woeful three-point shooting the team displayed over the last couple of years.

Instead, there are multiple rumors circulating about Trey Murphy III, the team’s best outside shooter, and his potential availability this summer. Whether any of the outside chatter is a distraction to him is unknown, but potentially creating unnecessary friction with one of their few legitimate bright spots is head-scratching as well.

HOLY TREY MURPHY pic.twitter.com/VKIdAlk9NH
— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) March 4, 2026

There are also question marks around the guaranteed two-year deal given to the veteran Jordan, the lack of a deal to move either of the high-priced guards Jordan Poole or Dejounte Murray, and just the overall lack of direction for the organization.

Hiring head coach Jamahl Mosley this offseason was supposed to signal a fresh start for the Pelicans' organization, especially with building a hard-working culture. However, handing a new head coach a disjointed roster with no paint protection and zero spacing upgrades is setting him up for failure before opening night.

Without a late-offseason trade to secure a starting-caliber center to balance the rotation, the Pelicans risk wasting another year of Zion Williamson’s prime and remaining stuck in Western Conference irrelevance.

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