New Orleans Pelicans Call Out Bill Simmons After Derik Queen Trade Comments originally appeared on Athlon Sports.
There were a number of wild moves made by teams during the first round of the 2025 NBA Draft on Wednesday night, like the Utah Jazz drafting a player who openly said he didn’t want to play for them, to the Portland Trail Blazers taking a player not projected to go in the first round.
However, it’s a move that the New Orleans Pelicans made that left The Ringer’s Bill Simmons bewildered, calling it was “one of the dumbest trades of the decade.”
In short, the Pelicans traded up in the draft from No. 23 to No. 13, where they selected Maryland Terrapins star Derik Queen. While that gamble is defensible, what stood out to Simmons was that New Orleans gave up an unprotected first-round pick in the 2026 NBA draft, which could end up being a high lottery pick, depending on how bad the Pelicans are this season.
“This was one of the five dumbest trades of this decade.”@BillSimmons was SPEECHLESS after the Pelicans traded away a 2026 unprotected first-round pick to move up 10 spots. pic.twitter.com/GpV3N53eBW
— The Ringer (@ringer) June 26, 2025
“This is when I lost my mind, I think I blacked out,” Simmons said on “The Bill Simmons Podcast.” “This was one of the five dumbest trades of the decade. I was speechless. I just can’t believe it.”
In the aftermath of the trade from New Orleans, basketball minds have weighed in, with some piling on, while others take the wait-and-see approach to things. ESPN’s NBA reporter Shams Charania is in the latter camp, and he expressed some patience when on “The Pat McAfee Show” on Thursday morning.
“How can you judge that?” Charania asked McAfee. “What if he ends up being a Hall of Famer? What if he ends up being a perennial all star? Then no one is going to be talking about this in 3 years.. To me it’s too early to judge if they won or lost.”
The Pelicans social media team got ahold of this clip from Shams, and they used to to poke a little bit of fun at Simmons on X.
“This rational take won’t get you a Ringer pod, Shams,” the Pelicans account wrote.
This rational take won’t get you a Ringer pod, Shams https://t.co/G4PBfbeLTl
— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) June 26, 2025
Of course, Simmons also saw the Pelicans’ comment online, so he commented on it and let it be known that he wouldn’t forget their shot at him and his company.
“Bookmarking this,” Simmons said.
All of this back and forth has made it a fun NBA topic on the day after the first round of the draft, and has provided a number of receipts that could be comical a few years down the road.
After Queen averaged 16 points and 9 rebounds throughout his one season with the Terrapins, there is a lot of confidence that he will continue to ascend and become a dominant NBA player as well, standing at 6-foot-10, 245 pounds.
Will he be good enough to justify the trade, and more importantly, will the Pelicans be good enough in 2025 to make it so that future first-round pick doesn’t come back to bite them?
That’s the million dollar question, at this point.
Related: Bill Simmons Shares 8-Word Reaction to Celtics-Blazers Jrue Holiday Trade
This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 26, 2025, where it first appeared.