Pelicans Called Bulls

[Michael Jackson]

Are we sure the NO pick will be good? If zion is back and healthy then NO will be fighting for a playoff spot.


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No but you get the better of Milwaukee or NOP picks and who knows with either team. Both could possibly make the playoffs but both could easily be lottery picks too. Might get lucky in the lottery. Regardless it is still a tradable asset to attach to any trade in this season.

Even if Zion is healthy they're a team that will rely on two rookies (Fears/Queen). That usual takes some time to develop.

Plus there is a chance that Giannis is traded this season and that is full rebuild (also a chance the end up first in the east with the east being a train wreck)

[dumbell78]

I think we are overthinking this gamble by Joe Dumars. He has essentially said that either his team or Milwaukee will be just fine next year and you have either of the worst pick for the cost of trading own about 10 spots. It's an insane bet.

Milwaukee may pivot or Giannis may decide they can't compete any longer, there is no guarantee they are competitive next year. If they blow it gets super interesting.

NOP at their best, they were 49-33 two years ago. Look at that team and look at the team entering 25-26. Its night and day, and entirely dependent on guys that don't play close to 82 games. Their roster construction is a joke. Even if healthy, who are they bumping down in the west? 1-6, I won't even discuss, because its laughable to.

7-10 area?

GSW, lol stop it.
SAS will be better obviously. Loaded roster
Dallas just landed the unicorn in Flagg, wont tank.
Blazers, they aren't tanking and have a nice young roster.

I see the same crappy bottom tier guys:
Kings
Jazz
Suns
Memphis? Maybe if they blow it up
Pelicans

[Dan Z]

I think we are overthinking this gamble by Joe Dumars. He has essentially said that either his team or Milwaukee will be just fine next year and you have either of the worst pick for the cost of trading own about 10 spots. It's an insane bet.

Milwaukee may pivot or Giannis may decide they can't compete any longer, there is no guarantee they are competitive next year. If they blow it gets super interesting.

NOP at their best, they were 49-33 two years ago. Look at that team and look at the team entering 25-26. Its night and day, and entirely dependent on guys that don't play close to 82 games. Their roster construction is a joke. Even if healthy, who are they bumping down in the west? 1-6, I won't even discuss, because its laughable to.

7-10 area?

GSW, lol stop it.
SAS will be better obviously. Loaded roster
Dallas just landed the unicorn in Flagg, wont tank.
Blazers, they aren't tanking and have a nice young roster.

I see the same crappy bottom tier guys:
Kings
Jazz
Suns
Memphis? Maybe if they blow it up
Pelicans

The Suns improved their depth and might not be done making moves. They have Mark Williams/Malauch/Richards at C, Dillon Brooks/Ryan Dunn at SF, Booker or Beal at SG, Booker at PG. Bench of Jalen Green, Royce Oneal, Grayson Allen and Rasheer Fleming. They could use a PG and PF. Maybe Grayson Allen and something can get one in a trade?

The other thing about this trade...if Giannis asks to be traded then the value of that pick goes up. Milwaukee might want it in a deal and maybe they'd overpay Atlanta for it (or I should say the team trading for Giannis will).

[dumbell78]

I think we are overthinking this gamble by Joe Dumars. He has essentially said that either his team or Milwaukee will be just fine next year and you have either of the worst pick for the cost of trading own about 10 spots. It's an insane bet.

Milwaukee may pivot or Giannis may decide they can't compete any longer, there is no guarantee they are competitive next year. If they blow it gets super interesting.

NOP at their best, they were 49-33 two years ago. Look at that team and look at the team entering 25-26. Its night and day, and entirely dependent on guys that don't play close to 82 games. Their roster construction is a joke. Even if healthy, who are they bumping down in the west? 1-6, I won't even discuss, because its laughable to.

7-10 area?

GSW, lol stop it.
SAS will be better obviously. Loaded roster
Dallas just landed the unicorn in Flagg, wont tank.
Blazers, they aren't tanking and have a nice young roster.

I see the same crappy bottom tier guys:
Kings
Jazz
Suns
Memphis? Maybe if they blow it up
Pelicans

The Suns improved their depth and might not be done making moves. They have Mark Williams/Malauch/Richards at C, Dillon Brooks/Ryan Dunn at SF, Booker or Beal at SG, Booker at PG. Bench of Jalen Green, Royce Oneal, Grayson Allen and Rasheer Fleming. They could use a PG and PF. Maybe Grayson Allen and something can get one in a trade?

The other thing about this trade...if Giannis asks to be traded then the value of that pick goes up. Milwaukee might want it in a deal and maybe they'd overpay Atlanta for it (or I should say the team trading for Giannis will).

The bold part is what I had in mind when I said so many possibilities in my first post. Maybe just maybe, if Giannis wants out, you now essentially own their 2026 pick. They literally have no picks. You now become part of the discussion in that move. You can potentially have 2 lottery picks in 2026 if you have a half a brain. Yours and the other guys.

Phoenix is in complete mess, and I have no confidence they figure it out next year. Even if they do, it's not really impacting that pick in any huge fashion. Really a non-starter when looking forward and projecting.

[dougthonus]

I don't think there's enough information here to bring out the pitchforks. Multiple teams in front of us also declined whatever New Orleans was offering. It's very possible they got desperate at 13 and made concessions when it became clear that Queen was going to become BPA on more team's boards.

If they did decline it though, then it's extremely disappointing.

All that would mean is on top of being stupid, we're bad at negotiating.

I mean your defense of them is that the team drafting after us, with a lower value pick, was able to negotiate a better deal than we could. That's a pretty poor defense.

[dougthonus]

Not taking this deal might work out for us. Essengue could be a star, NOP/MIL might end up both in the playoffs, etc.. etc..

You can never predict what will happen explicitly, but when you way things on a probability scale, the odds of taking this deal surpassing the returns of using our pick are massive. We just don't make good decisions. You can get lucky on bad decisions occasionally, but over time, you don't get good results if you aren't disciplined and don't take the highest value proposition on the board.

This is the most obvious dumb value proposition since the Vuc trade.

[Red Larrivee]

I don't think there's enough information here to bring out the pitchforks. Multiple teams in front of us also declined whatever New Orleans was offering. It's very possible they got desperate at 13 and made concessions when it became clear that Queen was going to become BPA on more team's boards.

If they did decline it though, then it's extremely disappointing.

All that would mean is on top of being stupid, we're bad at negotiating.

I mean your defense of them is that the team drafting after us, with a lower value pick, was able to negotiate a better deal than we could. That's a pretty poor defense.

Yes, that's true for every team 9-12. It doesn't seem probable that 4 teams passed on a coveted, unprotected first and were bad at negotiating until the impeccable Atlanta Hawks front office squeezed them. It's very possible New Orleans got desperate on their own after teams kept declining whatever deals they were offering.

I just don't think there's enough information. Dumars did not say he offered this same deal to each team. If he did, then I'd be completely disappointed we didn't take it.

[Michael Jackson]

I don't think there's enough information here to bring out the pitchforks. Multiple teams in front of us also declined whatever New Orleans was offering. It's very possible they got desperate at 13 and made concessions when it became clear that Queen was going to become BPA on more team's boards.

If they did decline it though, then it's extremely disappointing.

All that would mean is on top of being stupid, we're bad at negotiating.

I mean your defense of them is that the team drafting after us, with a lower value pick, was able to negotiate a better deal than we could. That's a pretty poor defense.

Yes, that's true for every team 9-12. It doesn't seem probable that 4 teams passed on a coveted, unprotected first and were bad at negotiating until the impeccable Atlanta Hawks front office squeezed them. It's very possible New Orleans got desperate on their own after teams kept declining whatever deals they were offering.

I just don't think there's enough information. Dumars did not say he offered this same deal to each team. If he did, then I'd be completely disappointed we didn't take it.

I doubt Dumars “offered” it but it was doable if negotiated clearly. We did not try to negotiate it or were just so in love with Noa. Seems like AKME don’t value the “asset” value of picks, which is no doubt inflated, but a real thing so I am sure they never asked.

[Red Larrivee]

I doubt Dumars “offered” it but it was doable if negotiated clearly. We did not try to negotiate it or were just so in love with Noa. Seems like AKME don’t value the “asset” value of picks, which is no doubt inflated, but a real thing so I am sure they never asked.

Again, we don't know any of this. We do know 3 other teams turned down the Pelicans offers. Are they also bad at negotiating? Hell, Portland took a different trade instead to move out of 11 with a future first that isn't nearly as valuable.

I'm not trying to shoot AK bail here. There's just a lot of key missing information to conclude we didn't negotiate something we should've got. It's very plausible that New Orleans got desperate, and Atlanta was in the right place at the right time to capitalize. Especially if they felt Queen was more likely to be BPA going forward.

[dougthonus]

Yes, that's true for every team 9-12. It doesn't seem probable that 4 teams passed on a coveted, unprotected first and were bad at negotiating until the impeccable Atlanta Hawks front office squeezed them. It's very possible New Orleans got desperate on their own after teams kept declining whatever deals they were offering.

I just don't think there's enough information. Dumars did not say he offered this same deal to each team. If he did, then I'd be completely disappointed we didn't take it.

Sorry, the idea that we couldn't get the same deal made for #13 with #12 is a completely meritless argument to me, especially when Dumars said he was negotiating the whole time to get this done. That sure feels like a whole lot of mental gymnastics to say that he wouldn't offer us the pick but he'd offer it to Atlanta because he didn't explicitly say he made each team the exact same offer.

[dougthonus]

I doubt Dumars “offered” it but it was doable if negotiated clearly. We did not try to negotiate it or were just so in love with Noa. Seems like AKME don’t value the “asset” value of picks, which is no doubt inflated, but a real thing so I am sure they never asked.

Again, we don't know any of this. We do know 3 other teams turned down the Pelicans offers. Are they also bad at negotiating? Hell, Portland took a different trade instead to move out of 11 with a future first that isn't nearly as valuable.

I'm not trying to shoot AK bail here. There's just a lot of key missing information to conclude we didn't negotiate something we should've got. It's very plausible that New Orleans got desperate, and Atlanta was in the right place at the right time to capitalize. Especially if they felt Queen was more likely to be BPA going forward.

We can't know 100% for sure, but it is about 100x more logical to assume we could have done this than to assume we can't.

[Red Larrivee]

Yes, that's true for every team 9-12. It doesn't seem probable that 4 teams passed on a coveted, unprotected first and were bad at negotiating until the impeccable Atlanta Hawks front office squeezed them. It's very possible New Orleans got desperate on their own after teams kept declining whatever deals they were offering.

I just don't think there's enough information. Dumars did not say he offered this same deal to each team. If he did, then I'd be completely disappointed we didn't take it.

Sorry, the idea that we couldn't get the same deal made for #13 with #12 is a completely meritless argument to me, especially when Dumars said he was negotiating the whole time to get this done. That sure feels like a whole lot of mental gymnastics to say that he wouldn't offer us the pick but he'd offer it to Atlanta because he didn't explicitly say he made each team the exact same offer.

Why didn't 11 get it done? Why didn't 10 get it done? What about 9?

If Dumars said that the only other team he talked to was Chicago, then I'd be on board with what you're saying. But there are 3 other teams who passed, including Portland who took a worse deal than what New Orleans ultimately gave. Maybe Portland wanted to make sure they got a certain player this year, but an unprotected 2026 first from New Orleans seems a lot more valuable than the 2028 first from Orlando and some random 2s.

There are just too many important facts missing here, and that's my only point. You can assume anything you want, but I don't think 4 teams passing on the same deal and just being bad at negotiating is the likeliest scenario that played out.

[The Force.]

I doubt Dumars “offered” it but it was doable if negotiated clearly. We did not try to negotiate it or were just so in love with Noa. Seems like AKME don’t value the “asset” value of picks, which is no doubt inflated, but a real thing so I am sure they never asked.

This is what it comes down to. Why wouldn’t AK pass on this? He’s not good at his job.

[MrSparkle]

My honest hot take in all this is that Queen might end up being the best pick in the 3-15 of this draft. It’s not a slam dunk chance, but it’s a reasonable possibility.

He’s rightfully been flagged for the 3Ball and attitude, but if you watch this guy’s game, he’s got it all except a high-volume/good 3P%. I even think his defense is getting picked apart unfairly. Getting in better shape, turning the baby fat into muscle could easily transform him into a serviceable defender.

I understand why he slipped past 6, but I don’t understand how he slipped to 13. If you want to gamble on Noa developing his shot and frame, then you can also gamble on Queen getting in shape and solidifying his long-range shot.

Anyway- this 3 piece meal should be a fun re-evaluation next June (if not painful). Unless everybody wins.

[dougthonus]

Why didn't 11 get it done? Why didn't 10 get it done? What about 9?

Because like us, each of those teams choose not to do the deal, and each of their fan bases should also 100% feel they could have had this deal too.

If Dumars said that the only other team he talked to was Chicago, then I'd be on board with what you're saying. But there are 3 other teams who passed, including Portland who took a worse deal than what New Orleans ultimately gave. Maybe Portland wanted to make sure they got a certain player this year, but an unprotected 2026 first from New Orleans seems a lot more valuable than the 2028 first from Orlando and some random 2s.

There are just too many important facts missing here, and that's my only point. You can assume anything you want, but I don't think 4 teams passing on the same deal and just being bad at negotiating is the likeliest scenario that played out.

This is literally the first time in my life I have seen a fleet of people try to argue that a trade made to acquire #13 would have not been on the table for the team at #12. It's completely nonsensical on the surface, and even more non-sensical given Dumars said he called every team, but hey, if you need a tape recording of the conversation to have enough information, feel free.

Best case scenario, which is incredibly damning still, is that Dumars called AK, and AK didn't bother to negotiate at all or hear an offer and just took his guy without hearing Dumars out or attempting to negotiate.

[nomorezorro]

i don't think it's outlandish at all to imagine a guy getting more desperate and increasing his trade offer after his initial attempts to move up were unsuccessful. especially because, as has been stressed, *a team took a worse offer to move down from 11*. any explanation for what happened has to account for what the blazers did, and i think it is far, far less plausible that they considered 16+the orlando 2028 first to be a better offer than 23+the unprotected pelicans first

there's also a chance that they adjusted their offer based on team-specific intel — e.g. they didn't really think the teams drafting 10-12 were a threat to draft queen, but they were worried he might go off the board 13-15, so the hawks are the point you get into last-chance best-offer territory. (i don't think this is a super duper likely scenario, but it is just another example of the existence of several unknowable variables that could have shaped how this went down)

fwiw, i think the most likely scenario is:

1. pelicans called all those teams to trade up, but did not actively put the unprotected first on the table.
2. the other gms could have extracted the unprotected first from the pelicans if they really pushed hard for it, but they did not do so because they did not think it was a realistic ask.

and honestly, i don't think it's a major failure for those GMs if that's the case. these teams have 5 minutes to negotiate while they're on the clock, and they're simultaneously managing a shifting board of available players. if you're not really interested in dropping down 10 picks, how much time are you going to devote to negotiating with dumars on the off chance that he's desperate enough to accept a deal that garners almost universal disbelief from nba observers?

it might not be a coincidence that the team that *did* successfully pull off a deal with the pelicans have a front-office person who helped with the transition to the new regime in new orleans. they might have had a better working relationship, or a better sense of how much the pelicans coveted queen, or insight into just how caviler dumars/weaver are about tossing around draft picks. obviously it would be ideal if our front office were able to do the same thing, but sports are littered with examples of specific teams repeatedly doing business with one another because of the relationship between their GMs.

[Midwest219]

#23 Pick - 2025 NBA Draft
2026 first-round pick (most favorable of New Orleans (unprotected) or Milwaukee)

FOR

#12 Pick - 2025 NBA Draft

AKME passed on this.

[step]

All that would mean is on top of being stupid, we're bad at negotiating.

I mean your defense of them is that the team drafting after us, with a lower value pick, was able to negotiate a better deal than we could. That's a pretty poor defense.

Yes, that's true for every team 9-12. It doesn't seem probable that 4 teams passed on a coveted, unprotected first and were bad at negotiating until the impeccable Atlanta Hawks front office squeezed them. It's very possible New Orleans got desperate on their own after teams kept declining whatever deals they were offering.

I just don't think there's enough information. Dumars did not say he offered this same deal to each team. If he did, then I'd be completely disappointed we didn't take it.

I doubt Dumars “offered” it but it was doable if negotiated clearly. We did not try to negotiate it or were just so in love with Noa. Seems like AKME don’t value the “asset” value of picks, which is no doubt inflated, but a real thing so I am sure they never asked.

They probably were ill-prepared about the guys who would likely be available @ that pick range ... and thus decided to pass up on the offer. We seemed pretty content with the plan on selecting someone who might be available at said pick range and had a few possibilities, but weren't enamoured with anyone specific.

We'll see if it backfires for Dumars, but they obviously wanted the guy they took and made it happen.

[pipfan]

Not taking this deal might work out for us. Essengue could be a star, NOP/MIL might end up both in the playoffs, etc.. etc..

You can never predict what will happen explicitly, but when you way things on a probability scale, the odds of taking this deal surpassing the returns of using our pick are massive. We just don't make good decisions. You can get lucky on bad decisions occasionally, but over time, you don't get good results if you aren't disciplined and don't take the highest value proposition on the board.

This is the most obvious dumb value proposition since the Vuc trade.

This is the point exactly-of course, it might be a #16 pick and no big deal
But probability says it's a top 10 pick, AT LEAST, in a stacked draft.

Does Noa project that much better than Newell or Fleming? I'm happy with the Noa pick, but the upside here was SO GREAT

[Dez]

I'm not sure I take Dumars at his word.