Taking a peek into the future, will center Derik Queen be the New Orleans Pelicans' best player?
The New Orleans Pelicans have prioritized the core of Zion Williamson, Trey Murphy and co. this offseason, as they continue to try to win now as opposed to rebuilding around the younger players, but those younger stars will eventually force the issue on the front office.
Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes took a peek into the future and tried to guess who each team's best player will be in three years. For the Pelicans, he ended up with a somewhat controversial pick in Derik Queen.
Queen has been a very polarizing player, with an equal number of supporters and doubters. Those who believe in his game, though, believe he could eventually become one of the best players in the NBA. If he is the best player on New Orleans' roster in three years, then it likely means very good things for the Pelicans.
As a rookie, Queen flashed the ability to be the engine for a modern NBA offense. He processes the game very fast, knows what pass to make, when to make that pass and uses finesse over brutality in his game. More so than some point guards, it really feels like he is a quarterback when he is at the top of the paint looking at what to do.
The best performances came when New Orleans just let him do his thing and run the show. Of course, it didn't always work well when they did that. That is part of being a rookie, though. His best games were very encouraging. He had 33 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists in a triple-double against the San Antonio Spurs, almost leading a massive comeback.
There are two questions raised by Queen being the team's best player: what is Jeremiah Fears' role, and what happened to Zion Williamson?
As for Fears, there is certainly a path forward for him to coexist with Queen. The blueprint that the Pelicans would probably follow would be the Denver Nuggets, where Queen is their Nikola Jokic while Fears is more of a Jamal Murray-type. New Orleans would need to add a lot of defense and shooting around those two, but it could work.
There is less certainty around what Queen and Williamson can do together. Joe Dumars is going to give them time to figure it out this year, but a roster focused around Queen likely doesn't have the Pelicans' former first overall pick anywhere near it.
