Best Draft Pick In New Orleans Pelicans History

New Orleans has had a number of identities as an NBA city, starting with the expansion Jazz in 1974. After the team moved to Utah five years later, Louisiana would not have a team until the Hornets relocated from Charlotte in 2002. After the Hornets returned to Charlotte, New Orleans assumed a new team brand in 2013, the Pelicans. 

Two players could justifiably claim the title as the best draft pick in New Orleans history. Anthony Davis was selected first overall in the 2012 NBA Draft out of Kentucky and averaged 23.7 points, 10.5 rebounds, and 2.4 blocks over seven seasons in New Orleans. A six-time All-Star, five-time All-NBA selection, a Defensive Player of the Year, and a player who led the Pelicans to three playoff appearances during his tenure, Davis grew to become one of the more dominant big men in the league.

While Davis’s résumé with the Pelicans was impressive, he arrived as the consensus number one pick in a weak draft, whereas Chris Paul’s selection came with a little more adversity, both for the player and the team itself. 

Selected fourth overall in the 2005 NBA Draft out of Wake Forest, Paul joined a New Orleans Hornets team that had been displaced from their home city by Hurricane Katrina, one of the worst natural disasters in American history. The team played most of the season as the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets, splitting games between two cities and four different arenas. Despite the challenges that the organization faced geographically, Paul, who started 78 of 78 games, was named Rookie of the Year, leading all rookies in points (16.1), assists (7.8), steals (2.2), and double-doubles (21), and helped the Hornets improve from 18 wins to 38 in his first season.

New Orleans would make the playoffs in Paul’s third season, one in which the team finished 56-26 as the team played its first full season back in Louisiana. Averaging 21.1 points, 11.6 assists, and 2.7 steals per game, Paul finished second in MVP voting behind the LA Lakers’ Kobe Bryant. Guiding New Orleans to the second seed in the Western Conference, Paul scored 35 points in his playoff debut against the Dallas Mavericks and set a franchise record with 17 assists in a single game in the second game of the series. The Hornets defeated the Mavericks in five games before falling to the eventual champion San Antonio Spurs in the second round. 

Paul spent six seasons with the Hornets, averaging 18.6 points and 10.7 assists, making five All-Star teams, three All-NBA teams, and leading the league in assists four times and steals twice. Originally thought to have been traded to the LA Lakers before the NBA vetoed the deal, Paul was eventually traded to the Clippers in 2011. 

While Davis may have been a more statistically dominant player, it was Paul who brought New Orleans greater on-court success as a team, while still providing elite numbers. Although he was never truly a “Pelican”, Paul did officially start his career in New Orleans, which qualifies him to earn the title of the best draft pick in New Orleans basketball history.