Oklahoma’s Jeremiah Fears will be making his first appearance as a member of the New Orleans Pelicans on Thursday in the 2025 NBA Summer League, hosted annually in Las Vegas.
Fears was drafted seventh overall by the Pelicans in the 2025 NBA Draft last month, and the one-and-done standout for the Sooners is looking to show why New Orleans’ GM Joe Dumars didn’t make a mistake by selecting the talented point guard.
Fears, Pelicans to tip off NBA Summer League in Vegas
Fears was the highest drafted Oklahoma player since Trae Young in 2018, who was picked fifth overall by the Dallas Mavericks and then famously traded over to the Hawks for Luka Doncic.
As of now, Fears isn’t expected to meet the expectations of either of those star guards, but there is a lot of high hopes for a guy who was recruited late in the offseason by Porter Moser after he decommitted from Illinois. Fears joined the program nearly a year ago, and I don’t think many Sooner fans would’ve thought that Fears would turn into a player who’d average over 17.1 points, 4.1 assists, 4.1 rebounds and 1.6 steals as a freshman in Oklahoma’s debut season in the SEC.
Fears joins a backcourt of veteran players such as Dejounte Murray and Jordan Poole in New Orleans. How Fears blends in with those two remains to be seen, but expect him to get downhill and display his playmaking ability throughout the season. However his rookie season goes, it’ll be good to see another Sooner in the NBA, and an event like the Summer League has been the opening audition for many stars heading into the NBA before.
It won’t be much of a wait to see how Fears does as he and the Pelicans will suit up in the first game of the Summer League in Vegas at 2:30 p.m. CT against the Timberwolves in the Thomas and Mack Center. Oklahoma fans can catch the game on ESPN 2.
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