The Joe Dumars era in New Orleans is not off to a hot start

The Joe Dumars era in New Orleans is not off to a hot start

Two months ago, the New Orleans Pelicans hired Joe Dumars as the team’s new head of basketball operations after ousting David Griffin, a polarizing executive around the NBA whose end was pretty tenure.

Dumars, known for his time as an executive with the Detroit Pistons, also had a disastrous ending at his most prominent stop. From the Charlie Villanueva and Ben Gordon contracts to the revolving door of coaches to the Josh Smith deal that quickly flipped on its head, it was an unceremonious end for Dumars’ tenure as the executive for the team he once played for.

While we still have to play the games, I don’t think it’s an unfair take to say his term as president is not off to a great start.

For one, earlier this week, he traded two expirings in CJ McCollum and Kelly Olynyk–two players whose value wasn’t insignificant–and threw Washington a life raft by taking back Jordan Poole‘s suboptimal contract, plus Saddiq Bey (who missed all of last season a torn ACL) and an early second-round pick.

To a degree, I understand trying to get younger. But I don’t think it was necessary to add Poole to the mix that already included Dejounte Murray and Zion Williamson if you’re not getting an additional asset of tangible value back.

That wasn’t the case.

What happened next was even worse: On Wednesday, Dumars traded their No. 23 pick plus NOP’s 2026 unprotected first-round pick to the Atlanta Hawks … to move up only 10 spots in the draft?!? The Pelicans are in a loaded Western Conference and barely project to be a play-in team, even assuming good health.

Trading short-term future to move up only 10 spots is borderline insane, especially when there’s zero guarantee you’re going to be a playoff team. Murray’s still recovering from a torn Achilles suffered in February, Williamson has only played 40 percent of his team’s games twice in six years and they traded away Brandon Ingram at the deadline.

Even if Murray is able to recover before the season starts–which seems unlikely–there remains a thin margin for error for this Pelicans team, barring a massive unforeseen personnel upgrade.

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That’s not the worst part: The unprotected first is a swap with Milwaukee, who’s one Giannis Antetokounmpo trade or injury away from a disaster with Damian Lillard sidelined. We still have to get to the finish line, but Atlanta has now presumably roped New Orleans two offseasons in a row. Yikes!

Again, we still have to play the games, but these are two very questionable moves from Dumars. Perhaps I’ll be wrong in the end, and for Dumars’ sake, I hope I am!

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