Every draft has a ghost. A name circled, argued over, nearly taken, then left on the board long enough to become somebody else’s future. For the New Orleans Pelicans in 2020, that ghost may now be Tyrese Maxey.
Rich Paul says he tried to tell them. According to Paul, he begged the Pelicans to take his client Maxey with the No. 13 pick in the 2020 NBA Draft. New Orleans passed. The reported reason was painfully modern: the analytics did not love Maxey’s three-point shooting profile at the time. Instead, the Pelicans selected Alabama guard Kira Lewis Jr. at No. 13. Maxey fell to Philadelphia at No. 21. The official 2020 draft record confirms New Orleans took Lewis at 13 and Maxey went eight picks later to the 76ers.
Rich Paul says he BEGGED the Pelicans to draft his client Tyrese Maxey at pick 13 in the 2020 draft 😳
The Pelicans passed because the analytics said Tyrese Maxey wasn’t a good enough 3PT shooter at the time
The Pelicans selected PG Kira Lewis Jr instead
(Via Game Over) pic.twitter.com/U7NtlvYaPk
— NBA Courtside (@NBA__Courtside) May 25, 2026
That decision has aged like a warning label. Maxey has become one of the league’s most explosive guards, a blur with range, courage and star-level responsibility. He just earned his first All-NBA selection, landing on the 2025-26 Third Team after averaging 28.3 points, 6.6 assists, 4.1 rebounds and 1.9 steals per game. Lewis, meanwhile, never became the franchise guard New Orleans hoped for. His Pelicans run was derailed in part by a torn ACL and MCL in December 2021, and his career moved into journeyman territory after that.
The cruelty is that the original concern was not irrational. Maxey shot poorly from three during his lone season at Kentucky, and teams in 2020 were terrified of guards who could not bend defenses from deep. But scouting is not merely identifying what a player is. It is imagining what he can become. Maxey became the bet New Orleans could not bring itself to make: a worker, a driver, a scorer, a leader, and eventually an All-NBA guard.
That is the lesson. Analytics can protect teams from mistakes. They can also make them miss the human part of projection. Maxey’s jumper improved. His confidence never left. His speed translated. His personality scaled. The Pelicans looked at the shot chart and saw risk. Philadelphia looked at the player and found a cornerstone.
Now the story reads like one of those draft-night regrets that never fully disappears. New Orleans had Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram. It needed a guard who could grow with them. Rich Paul says he pointed directly at one. The Pelicans chose another.
Eight picks later, the Sixers inherited the answer.
