For UConn fans who watched Jordan Hawkins torch the 2023 NCAA Tournament, the latest NBA rumor mill is a reminder of how quickly a college star’s story can change once the lottery lights fade.
Sean Deveney of Heavy.com recently listed Hawkins among young guards who could be moved this NBA campaign, noting that the former Husky never lived up to his lottery billing after that memorable March run and now sits on an expiring one-year, $7 million deal with the New Orleans Pelicans.
Deveney also pointed out that Hawkins is still only 24, even as his career field-goal percentage sits at 37.4 percent. That combination of youth, cheap remaining salary, and unfinished business is exactly why his name keeps surfacing when teams talk about filling out a backcourt.
Hawkins arrived in Storrs as a skinny wing with range and left as one of the faces of Dan Hurley’s first national title.
In the 2023 NCAA Tournament, he looked fearless, knocking down threes in big moments and giving UConn a second scoring option beside Adama Sanogo. NBA teams bought the tape.
The Pelicans took him 14th overall, imagining a floor-spacing guard who could grow into a rotation piece next to Zion Williamson and later Dejounte Murray.
The professional version has been harder. Minutes have come in stretches rather than as a settled role. The shot that looked automatic in the Garden and in Houston has been streaky at the next level, and New Orleans has cycled through enough backcourt combinations that Hawkins has never quite found a defined job.
A career mark under 38 percent from the field is the number opposing front offices will use against him. UConn people will counter that volume and confidence were always part of his game, and that 24 is still early for a shooter whose best skill is supposed to arrive later.
What makes the rumor interesting from a Huskies perspective is not that Hawkins is suddenly a star. It is that he is movable. An expiring contract at that price is the kind of piece a contender can take as a flyer or a rebuilding club can stash while it sorts its own young guards.
If New Orleans decides it needs another body or another pick, Hawkins is an easy name to attach to a larger deal. If he stays, this season is the last cheap look before restricted free agency conversations get serious.
For fans who still see the kid in the championship parade, the hope is simple. Somewhere, whether in New Orleans or elsewhere, a coach will give him a defined role and live with the misses long enough for the 2023 version to reappear.
The lottery promise is gone. The shooting stroke that once felt inevitable in Hartford is not. That is the UConn story now: not whether Hawkins becomes a max player, but whether the next stop finally lets him play like the guard who helped deliver a title.
