Winners and losers from 2025 NBA Draft first round: What are the Pelicans doing?

New York Times

4 hours ago

The first night of the NBA Draft has come and gone. It was simultaneously by the books while also including some jaw-dropping choices from teams.
I'll have full grades for every team after Thursday's second round. But for now, here are my winners and losers column from the first round.
The Mavericks did the easy thing by selecting Cooper Flagg at No. 1, and now they will employ the player I have as my second-favorite prospect of the last decade behind only Victor Wembanyama.
Beyond that, I love the fit of Flagg in Dallas. Flagg is a highly competitive individual. He wants to win. He's wired that way, and he's ready to help a team win from Day 1. I greatly preferred him going to a situation as a rookie that would allow him to compete quickly as opposed to one that would take a longer-term rebuilding approach. He gets that with the Mavericks, who already have Anthony Davis, Dereck Lively II, Daniel Gafford, PJ Washington, Klay Thompson and the injured Kyrie Irving locked under contract. Even without Irving next year, if Dallas can sign a good guard, I think it can make the playoffs next season and go well beyond that in 2027 if Flagg ascends to All-Star status earlier than expected.
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And while we all rightfully had questions about general manager Nico Harrison's decision to move Luka Dončić to prioritize defense, it's hard to imagine a better young star if that's your goal. Flagg is a willing and terrific defensive player and will embrace being part of a team that wants to build its culture around that end of the floor. To be clear, the fact that the Mavs hit a one-outer on the river to land Flagg in the lottery does not excuse Harrison's decision-making process on the Dončić deal. But, hey, sometimes you play poorly and you still win money in poker.
And sometimes it's worth pointing out that the obvious winner is still a winner. The Mavericks got drastically better Wednesday night.
OK, I promise, I'm not going to go in order the entire time. But the Spurs also got much better on Wednesday, and it's worth calling out how intelligently they handled this process. They got lucky and spiked up to the No. 2 spot, and after trading for De'Aaron Fox at the deadline, it would have been easy for them to field offers to see what was available. Instead, they held firm, and, per league sources, never seriously entertained offers for Harper. The Spurs are not likely to end up back at the top of the lottery any time soon with Wembanyama around in addition to Fox.
Given that, San Antonio should have opted for simply the best talent on the board regardless of fit, and it did just that.
The intel on Harper is that he's a terrific personality and a high-level worker. He perfectly fits the Spurs culture and is a tremendous talent to top it off. I also think he fits the team even more than Rookie of the Year Stephon Castle, even though I think they'll all eventually figure it out. Harper has shown he can knock down shots off the catch, hitting 38.3 percent of his catch-and-shoot 3s this year at Rutgers. He's also a sublime driver of the ball who is elite at creating rim pressure with his creative handle and tremendous footwork on the interior. If the pull-up jumper comes along in the next few years, Harper has a chance to be an All-Star by the end of his rookie scale deal.
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I also loved the Spurs' second pick. They were rumored throughout the week to have interest in Duke's Khaman Maluach, the 7-foot-1 center who fell to the Phoenix Suns at No. 10. I heard that from enough places to believe it wasn't a smokescreen. However, I love that the Spurs didn't break the bank to move up to get Maluach. Instead, they stayed put and ended up with a player whom sources have associated with the Spurs essentially since the draft lottery in May, as Carter Bryant fell to No. 14.
Bryant was the No. 10 player on my board, and he's another pristine fit for the Spurs. He's regarded as an excellent character bet and a hard worker, aspects that have mattered to the Spurs over their many years of success. He also fills a hole on the roster as a legitimate 3-and-D wing who can grow with the younger players on the roster. Bryant drilled 37 percent of his 3s this year, and he's an incredibly disruptive defender who will pair with Castle to create one of the more fearsome young defensive duos on the wing. The Arizona product is an aggressive competitor, a disruptive on-ball presence and a genuine playmaker on the defensive end. This will be an A+ draft for me when I hand out draft grades on Friday.
Some will raise their eyebrows at the Hornets selecting Kon Knueppel at No. 4. Indeed, there was some chatter from sources across the league ahead of the draft that GM Jeff Peterson and company looked to potentially slide down to pick up additional assets and still acquire their targeted player in Knueppel. In the end, Charlotte likely couldn't have been sure that Knueppel would be available, so they just decided to take him at No. 4. And I love the pick.
Knueppel was my No. 3 player in this class largely because he doesn't have any holes, and he can step in right away to create a positive impact. He's an elite shooter, a teenager who drilled 41 percent from 3 and 91 percent from the line as a freshman this year. He has far more game on the ball than people think, as he's an excellent pick-and-roll player as a secondary creator, a tough driver who finishes well off two feet, and a sharp passer who throws lobs at a high level. He's an underrated defender because of his strength and his engagement on that end. He always works hard, and he's excellent at feeding his man into where he knows the help is from his teammates.
In today's NBA, the defenders who tend to struggle are those without strength who get beaten in straight lines because they aren't strong enough to hold their own line on defense. Knueppel isn't necessarily going to be a positive NBA defender, but I think he'll be a neutral one. The upside here is similar to what Desmond Bane has been for the Memphis Grizzlies, and he just got dealt to Orlando for four first-round picks.
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Charlotte also executed the Mark Williams deal that it tried with the Los Angeles Lakers this past deadline, getting the No. 29 pick and a future 2031 first-rounder from the Phoenix Suns (more on them later). That deal is a big win for the Hornets, in my opinion. Williams is a productive player when he's on the court, and he averaged 15 points and 10 rebounds this season. But he's not an effective defensive player and hasn't grown in that respect over the last couple of years. He often gets caught in no-man's land in ball screens, and he struggles to guard in space. The Hornets were going to have a difficult decision this summer since Williams is extension-eligible as he enters the fourth year of his rookie-scale deal.
With that 29th pick, Charlotte selected Liam McNeeley, who slipped down the board and was the final player remaining in the green room. He was expected to go somewhere in the No. 15 to 21 range. McNeeley had a tough year at Connecticut, as he was thrust into a role that wasn't ideal for him. He had to play more on the ball than he should have, and he also injured his ankle midseason. He's a real shooter despite his 31.7 percent mark from 3, as many of those shots were contested and occurred after his ankle injury. He's also remarkably competitive and works hard at his craft. I bet that he figures out how to mitigate his shortcomings, like his lack of footspeed, and turns into a rotation player.
What these two picks showcased to me was that the Hornets are trying to move into a different era under Peterson, new ownership and coach Charles Lee. The team hasn't always played the most competitive basketball. Its defensive engagement has generally been lacking in the LaMelo Ball era. But in Knueppel and McNeeley, Charlotte took two players who will compete and fight. They're teenagers, yes. But they carry themselves as adults and are serious-minded. Getting more of those players in the room will help Charlotte take the next step.
I have so many questions about what the New Orleans Pelicans are doing. But if there is a loser in the Hawks-Pelicans trade on Wednesday — and there is definitely a loser in the deal — that means there has to be a winner. It's a massive credit to new Hawks general manager Onsi Saleh that could slide down just 10 slots from No. 13 to No. 23 and somehow land an unprotected first-round pick in the 2026 NBA Draft from the Pelicans.
But we didn't even get to the best part: not only is that pick unprotected, but it's also the best pick owned by either the Pelicans or the Milwaukee. This could be a top-10 pick in 2026, for a class that is thought to be quite strong by evaluators. The Pelicans look like they're going to struggle next season (more on that in the next section), and the Bucks have some real variance next season. If Giannis Antetokounmpo, god forbid, were to miss 35 games due to injury, Milwaukee would very likely be one of the worst teams in the Eastern Conference. That pick has tremendous upside, and it's a huge asset for the Hawks.
I'm combining these two because they made two of my favorite picks of the draft in Tre Johnson and Cedric Coward.
Full disclosure: I tried to make a final, last-minute adjustment on my draft rankings to slot Johnson at No. 3 on my board. Ultimately, we ran out of time to put it into the draft guide, but that's how highly I think of Johnson. I'm a big believer in workers figuring it out. And there is a genuine case for Johnson as the hardest worker in the class. He's a machine in how he approaches his craft. He's singularly focused on becoming the best player he can be. I tend to buy into those kinds of players. It also doesn't hurt that Johnson is one of the three best shooters in the class, along with Knueppel and Kentucky wing Koby Brea. If you made me pick the most functional, versatile one of that trio, I would go with Johnson. He's an elite shooter off movement because his jumper looks the same every single time, and he's elite at getting his feet organized underneath him.
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The player Johnson reminds me of most is a modern version of Rip Hamilton, who averaged 19 points per game over 717 games in the 2000s. But whereas Hamilton played in a slower era and mostly got his shots from the midrange, Johnson plays uptempo and takes his shots at volume from beyond the arc. I don't think it's out of the question that he averages 25 points per game in the NBA. The Wizards also drafted Hamilton in 1999. Hopefully, they don't preemptively trade Johnson for this era's equivalent of a 29-year-old Jerry Stackhouse and Brian Cardinal.
For the Grizzlies, it's quite simple — with a slight complication. I was also quite high on Coward, a big, physical upside swing at 6-foot-5 with a 7-foot-2 wingspan and pristine shooting mechanics. He's going to be a useful NBA player because he's enormous and a terrific worker whom NBA teams like. It's why Memphis felt like it needed to move up to acquire him. This is the exact player archetype that the Grizzlies have been clamoring for over the last few years. They have needed a big wing to help carry the load on offense while also taking on defensive matchups. Coward won't be able to do all of these things immediately, but he should do so while Jaren Jackson Jr. and Ja Morant are still under contract.
The complicating factor for the Grizzlies is that they gave up a large haul to get Coward. They traded No. 16, a 2028 unprotected Orlando first-rounder, and two seconds to get him. Ultimately, I think this deal is going to work out fine for Memphis, as the Magic will have Paolo Banchero, Franz Wagner, Jalen Suggs and Desmond Bane under contract for the 2027-28 season with no reason to tank given that they do not have their own pick. The price point doesn't make this a home run. Sometimes, though, you need to take a home run swing, and I think this was a smart, calculated move.
What are the Pelicans doing? That's a question that was asked repeatedly in text messages from other teams following their decision to trade up to No. 13 after selecting Jeremiah Fears at No. 7. This deal was completely absurd. To move up just 10 slots to get Derik Queen, the Pelicans gave up Wednesday's No. 23 pick and a pick that could very well land in the top 10 next year.
'This is the worst trade, non-Luka division, that we've seen in at least a decade,' one assistant GM texted me.
Before explaining why the last two days have been among the most baffling I've seen from a front office in about a decade, I want to note that it has nothing to do with my evaluations of the players. I had Fears ranked No. 18, but I see the case for betting on his upside. He has talent with the ball in his hands. He's shifty and lightning quick. He's tough and is a walking paint touch.
My issues come with what happens after he gets the paint touch (he was a poor finisher and shooter this season, on top of turning the ball over too much), and I think he was the worst defensive player selected in the first round. But I see the vision for how this could work out. The same can be said of Queen, whom I had ranked at No. 12. He's a creative offensive big man who's excellent with the ball in his hands, and he can score around the rim. He's the sixth freshman since 1980 in college basketball to average 15 points, eight rebounds, 1.9 assists, and shoot 50 percent from the field. He has real gifts, even if I also have serious questions defensively.
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But I want to focus on what exactly the plan is for the Pelicans. On Tuesday, they traded C.J. McCollum and Kelly Olynyk to the Wizards for Jordan Poole and Saddiq Bey. They still have Zion Williamson, Trey Murphy III, Herb Jones and Yves Missi on the roster. Among their eight most important players for next year — including Fears and Queen — I would argue that Jones is the one positive defender. Jones is one of the best defenders in the league, and Murphy is at least a neutral on that end. But Jones is the only difference-maker.
I would also argue that they have a half-dozen truly deficient defensive players in Fears, Poole, Williamson, Bey (coming off a knee injury), Queen and Missi. When they took Fears after trading for Poole, I thought maybe the Pelicans would just take next year as a rebuilding one to create an internal infrastructure, ethically tank toward the top of a loaded 2026 draft class while playing in an even more loaded Western Conference and keep rebuilding.
But then they dumped their unprotected first-round pick for next year and theoretically went all-in on winning while selecting another defensive question mark. And this is without even mentioning the efficacy of taking on the future money owed to Poole for the expiring McCollum money. Poole was undeniably better last season, but not so much better that it was worth taking on an extra $34 million in 2026-27.
These moves follow essentially the same blueprint laid out by current Pelicans general manager and former Detroit Pistons general manager Troy Weaver when he got the Pistons job in 2020. Sources across the league believe that Weaver is heavily influencing the decisions in New Orleans, even though Joe Dumars is the president of basketball operations. Weaver's fingerprints are all over these moves. He drafted Bey back in 2020. He was with the Wizards last year as a senior advisor. He is from the Washington D.C./Baltimore area and often favors players from that community. Queen is from Baltimore.
There are other parallels to Weaver's decision-making when he was in Detroit. He selected a young point guard in Killian Hayes at No. 7, then traded a future first-round pick to move up and get a big man in Isaiah Stewart. After hampering the Pistons' flexibility over the last five years, that pick finally transferred this season. He also traded for a volume scorer in Jerami Grant (another player from the Maryland area) and signed him to a three-year deal.
Things worked out so well that Detroit won 74 of the 318 games in which Weaver was in charge, a run that also included an NBA record 28-game losing streak in his fourth and final season. And Dumars shouldn't be let off the hook for his time in Detroit; after building an NBA champion, he was never able to recapture success. In his final five seasons with the Pistons, Dumars went 140-253 for a 35.6 winning percentage.
The decision-making here is baffling, especially in a Western Conference that features more depth than arguably any iteration in NBA history. The Pelicans have the worst defensive talent of any team in the NBA right now and would be a favorite to finish last in defensive rating in 2025-26, a year after they just finished 29th in defensive rating.
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I didn't know that an NBA front office could still surprise me with such brazen incompetence. I thought we were at the point when organizations largely hired sharp, analytically-minded people who had a sense of strategy and a realistic understanding of where their team sat in the league pecking order. These moves made me feel alive as someone who evaluates basketball for a living, so in that respect, I'm grateful that we have a total wild card back in the mix.
Obviously, though, I think it's unlikely that this ends well.
I'm definitely surprised that the Nets made all five of their first-round picks. If there was one thing that NBA people would have bet on going into Wednesday, it was that Brooklyn wouldn't make all its picks. Just about everybody thought the Nets would either trade up into the lottery, trade out of picks No. 26 and No. 27 or parlay some of that draft capital into future or current assets.
Instead, with Nos. 8, 19 and 22, they took the players I had ranked at No. 26, No. 22, and No. 34. I'm far from infallible, as all evaluators get stuff wrong every year. I'm particularly low on Egor Demin compared to others this year. But even according to the consensus ranking from Jon Chepkevich's RookieScale.com, the Nets took players ranked No. 14, No. 22, and No. 30 in those slots, which is not exactly ideal.
The bigger issue is that Brooklyn also took three point guards with its five picks in Demin, Nolan Traore and Ben Saraf. Demin and Saraf could potentially move off the ball eventually because of their size, but all three players also have serious questions as shooters. That could result in positional overlap long-term if they can't play away from the ball and force closeouts from defenders. Heck, even the two players they took who aren't point guards, Drake Powell and Danny Wolf, aren't great shooters, and Wolf also really likes to play on the ball.
It's a very strange quintet of players to select. And that's before we get to my worries about the scoring ability of Demin, Traore and Powell, Wolf's overall scheme fit and Saraf's shooting ability and lack of right hand. Funnily enough, my favorite player of the bunch is the one they selected last in Wolf. He's a gamble for sure, but skilled bigs are hard to come by and I thought he had an easier time separating from his opposition this year than Demin did. Wolf is a tremendous playmaker because of his handle; he's creative when sees the court, and he gives a team a genuine five-out look. It wouldn't surprise me if we look up a year from now and see a similar situation to what played out this season in Utah, where Kyle Filipowski was the team's lowest of three rostered draft picks but returned the most positive value.
I hope Brooklyn is right and I'm wrong on the players. But even from a process perspective, this one seemed a bit off without even knowing all of the possible trades on the table.
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I don't think the Blazers' moves as a whole are as confounding as the two teams above them. I like that the Blazers traded down from No. 11 with Memphis and added more capital in the form of the No. 16 pick, a 2028 unprotected first-round pick from Orlando and two second-round picks. That's excellent value for sliding down only five slots. In that vein, it's hard for me to crush the Blazers.
Still, the Yang Hansen pick at No. 16 is one of the most surprising of the last decade. There was some reason to take him there, given that Portland really liked him. League sources indicated that Brooklyn was interested in selecting Yang, and with the Nets possessing four picks between No. 19 and No. 27, the Blazers would have had to dodge an awful lot of obstacles to get their guy.
But Yang was the No. 48 player on my board, and most NBA scouts and executives I spoke with had a clear second-round grade on him. The consensus public boards were a bit higher on Yang, with RookieScale.com placing him at No. 34. Still, that's more than double where the Blazers took him. Yang has some tremendous skills. He's an elite passer for a big man and sees the court incredibly well. He also has good touch around the rim and a pretty sweet little floater game.
My worries are that it's going to be tough for him to make it work at the NBA level against elite athletes at the center position. He has a high-hipped frame, which leads to balance and center-of-gravity issues. He doesn't have a ton of explosiveness or power in how he plays. The guys who tend to make it work in this archetype are those who bury you on the block with their shoulder and move you. Think Nikola Jokić, Domantas Sabonis, Nikola Vucevic, and Karl-Anthony Towns. Even though Towns is the more perimeter-based big, he will still put his shoulder into you and move you backward with force. I don't think Yang has that same level of force to his game, and I don't think he's a good enough shooter from the perimeter to make it work out there consistently.
Then on defense, I'm very skeptical he's going to handle playing on the perimeter in the NBA.
(Top photo of NBA commissioner Adam Silver and New Orleans Pelicans draftee Jeremiah Fears: Brad Penner / Imagn Images)