With the seventh overall pick in the 2025 NBA draft, the Pelicans have selected guard Jeremiah Fears.
Fears raised his stock significantly over the course of his first and only college season at Oklahoma — he didn’t show up at all on ESPN’s 59-player mock draft last November. The former four-star recruit was among the NCAA’s best ball-handlers and play-makers as a freshman, averaging 17.1 points, 4.1 assists, 4.1 rebounds, and 1.6 steals per game in 34 outings (31 starts).
Fears’ jumper remains a work in progress, as he knocked down just 28.4% of 3.9 three-point tries per game for the Sooners, but the 6’4″ guard still has plenty of room to grow — he won’t turn 19 years old until October.
While Fears is viewed by some talent evaluators as having star-level upside, it could take him a while to reach that point, with defense and decision-making two other critical areas he needs to improve on going forward, writes Jonathan Givony of ESPN.
Interestingly, the Pelicans recently agreed to trade CJ McCollum and Kelly Olynyk to Washington for Jordan Poole and Saddiq Bey. Assuming Poole is New Orleans’ starting point guard, Fears — whose game is somewhat similar to Poole’s — could initially be a spark-plug scorer off the bench.
Pelicans have no excuses
Fears Murray Poole Bey Trey Herb Zion Missi
If Zion goes down again then they only have themselves to blame
Pels have a TOUGH backcourt now with Jose, Fears, Poole, Dejounte & Hawkins. Gotta start talking about them as a big time playoff contender in the West, esp if they can bring Bruce Brown back & find a vet big
I see a lot of offense and very little defense. Jose is defense but his size gets taken advantage of the longer he plays a game.
Dejounte tore Achilles.
Jose is a great defender. When Dejounte comes back he’s a great defender too. The other guys are def minus defenders but they’re all great scorers & big time offensive players in general. Pels got guys like Bruce Brown, Herb Jones, Yves Missi that are all great defenders who aren’t great offensive players as well. Everybody isn’t gonna be MJ but the Pels clearly have an extremely talented backcourt & their whole team is looking a lot better in the last couple days.
They suck … and will never be anything till they rid of the leach on that team. Until Zion is gone they will never be good ..
One of my favorite picks in this NBA Draft and he will be able to learn a lot from Dejounte Murray. Jeremiah Fears has Superstar talent.