New Orleans Pelicans: Top 10 NBA Draft in franchise history
Officially, the New Orleans Pelicans have only made 25 draft selections in their history. Who stands among their top 10?
The New Orleans Pelicans have a quirky draft history. That’s because they no longer own half of it.
The franchise arrived in New Orleans in 2002 after spending 14 seasons as the Charlotte Hornets. In 2013, the Hornets became the Pelicans. “Pelicans” was a name that new team owner Tom Benson felt better reflected the region.
The following season, the Charlotte Bobcats — a 2004 expansion team added to replace the loss of the original Hornets — decided to rebrand under the Pelicans’ former moniker. In the process, the new Hornets took back the Charlotte portion of the old team’s history. Therefore, the Pelicans have officially been the NBA’s youngest franchise since 2014.
This has a profound affect on determining the franchise’s top 10 draft picks of all time, which is the goal of this article. The pickings are very slim for this list since the Pelicans’ draft history only goes back to the 2003 NBA Draft now. The franchise has made 25 selections all-time, by far the fewest of any NBA team. Only 13 of those picks ever suited up for the New Orleans Hornets or Pelicans.
The Pelicans haven’t added to their draft legacy in recent years, either. The team selected Anthony Davis, Austin Rivers and Darius Miller in the 2012 NBA Draft, but since then, only one their seven selections have played in New Orleans.
That one pick, Buddy Hield, now plays for the Sacramento Kings. Their two 2017 selections — Dwayne Bacon and Edmond Sumner — had their rights traded to other teams shortly after the draft. Basically, the team has not retained any of its picks since becoming the Pelicans.
Inclusion on this list is based off of players that were drafted and played for the team. For instance, Nerlens Noel and Darrell Arthur will not be found on this list. Since there were only 13 players eligible for this list, Brandon Bass, Cedric Simmons and Marcus Vinicius were the three picks that ended up left off of this list.
With such a thin pool to draw from, which players made the cut? Click through to find out.