Snapshot
- Team / role: New Orleans Pelicans sixth-man combo guard with a credible starting/closing path; approximately 26 active-game minutes in the base case.
- 2025-26 baseline: 82 games, 25.8 MPG, 14.3 PTS, 3.7 REB, 3.4 AST, 1.2 STL, 0.4 BLK and 1.2 threes on .434 FG and .789 FT. NBA team statistics, accessed 2026-07-18
- Development signal: first Pelicans rookie to play all 82 games, All-Rookie Second Team, and a 40-point franchise rookie record on April 7. NBA All-Rookie announcement, 2026-05-21 · ESPN/AP, 2026-04-07
2026-27 projection
| GP | MPG | FG% | FT% | 3PM | PTS | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 80 | 28 | .438 | .795 | 1.3 | 15.9 | 4.0 | 4.2 | 1.3 | 0.4 | 2.4 |
Correction 2026-07-18 Raised from 78 GP x 26 MPG with counting stats scaled. Part of the team board's rebalance to a valid season-minutes total; Fears gains 2 healthy-night minutes from Jordan Poole's removal from the rotation ten. The 3PM line is held flat rather than scaled up, applying the Mosley three-point-attempt fade.
Fantasy translation
- Nine-category: 105-145; scoring and steals are useful, but FG%, turnovers and uncertain assists keep him outside the safe top 100.
- Points: 90-120; late-round upside rises quickly in formats that reward volume and defensive events.
- Dynasty: 50-80; a prime second-year buy whose long-term ceiling exceeds his crowded 2026-27 base role.
Role, floor and ceiling
Fears projects for 26 minutes split across both guard spots. Floor: 22-minute bench scorer behind Murray, Herb Jones and Jordan Poole, with sub-44% shooting. Ceiling: 31-plus minutes, 18/4/5 and 1.5 steals if he starts, Poole is traded or Murray misses time. He averaged 37.3 points, 6.0 rebounds, 5.7 assists and 2.7 steals over the final three games, but that short depleted-roster sample cannot be treated as a new baseline. NBA final-week fantasy rankings, 2026-04
Injury and transaction monitor
Fears played all 82 games, so there is no verified carryover injury at the research cut. The risk is role compression, not availability: Murray and Poole remain under contract, while Jones's defense fits Mosley's preferences.
Research shelf
Career record
Pre-NBA: Oklahoma, one season (2024-25). 34 games, 17.1 points, 4.1 rebounds, 4.1 assists, 1.6 steals in 30.2 minutes on .434 FG / .284 3PT / .851 FT. He was the only SEC player to average at least 16 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists and 1.5 steals, and made the SEC All-Freshman Team; he also took two SEC Freshman of the Week awards and made the Battle 4 Atlantis All-Tournament Team. He arrived there young — born October 14, 2006, after reclassifying up a year out of Joliet West and Arizona Compass Prep — and played the entire college season at 18. Draft: 2025, first round, seventh overall by New Orleans; no draft-night trade.
| Season | Age | Team | GP | MPG | PTS | REB | AST | STL | BLK | 3PM | FG% | FT% | TO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-26 | 19 | NOP | 82 | 25.8 | 14.3 | 3.7 | 3.4 | 1.2 | 0.4 | 1.2 | .434 | .789 | 2.2 |
| Career | 82 | 25.8 | 14.3 | 3.7 | 3.4 | 1.2 | 0.4 | 1.2 | .434 | .789 | 2.2 |
Fantasy history: One season, and its season-end nine-category rank is not verifiable from public season-end data, so no figure is given. The shape is legible from the line itself: points, threes and steals on the credit side, field-goal percentage and 2.2 turnovers on the debit side, with assists at 3.4 too low to carry a category. That is a late-round nine-cat profile that was worth more in the last month than across the year. Points leagues rate him higher than categories do, because the turnover and field-goal-percentage costs that suppress his nine-cat value are either lightly weighted or absent there, while the steals and blocks still score.
Durability: 82. He played every game of his rookie year — the first Pelicans rookie to do so — and no injury absence is on record. There is no carryover injury and no established fragility signal, though a single season is a thin base for any durability conclusion in either direction.
Trajectory: The only season on file is a rookie year, so there is no arc yet — what exists is a rate profile and an age. Per 36 minutes the rookie line was roughly 20 points, 4.7 assists and 1.7 steals, which is a starter's production rate delivered in a bench guard's minutes, and the steal rate in particular is the kind of number that tends to persist rather than regress. The constraint is efficiency: .434 from the field and .330 from three at high rim-pressure volume, which is the normal cost of a 19-year-old guard living in the paint and is also the single input most likely to improve with age. He turns 20 in October 2026 and is at the very front of the development curve, which means the honest expectation for 2026-27 is incremental — more minutes if Poole moves, better shooting variance, but not the April three-game explosion, which came against depleted opposition with the roster stripped. The dynasty case is much stronger than the redraft case, and the redraft case is entirely a bet on role.
Career sources: StatMuse — Fears career per game, Wikipedia — Jeremiah Fears, Sports-Reference college stats, NBA 2025 draft prospect page
Open questions
- Does Fears start next to Murray or lead the second unit?
- Can he raise FG% without losing rim pressure and free-throw volume?
- Is Poole still present when the regular season begins?