Derik Queen pours gas on the Hawks-Pelicans rivalry with viral tweets

The Atlanta Hawks and New Orleans Pelicans will forever be intertwined. The Hawks have fleeced the Pels in two consecutive offseason trades, first managing to trade Dejounte Murray for Dyson Daniels and picks. This trade saved the Hawks by giving Trae Young his ideal backcourt pairing and giving the team reason to believe in him.

The Hawks doubled down by trading the rights to draft Derik Queen for Asa Newell and a coveted 2026 NOP first round pick. While Queen is an exciting young talent, the trade has already become infamous, as the 2026 pick could be a franchise-altering asset. 

Of course, the Hawks and Pelicans are not the only Atlanta-New Orleans rivals; the Atlanta Falcons and New Orleans Saints are bitter rivals as well. FanSided’s own Brad Rowland summed up the feelings of Falcons and Hawks fans heading into Sunday’s head-to-head matchup.

The dormant Hawks-Pels rivalry picked up some steam in Saturday night’s matchup in New Orleans. With seconds left, Atlanta held a 19-point lead as they dribbled the clock out to end the game. Queen then broke one of the NBA’s customs by stealing the ball and going for a dunk on the other end. After a brief exchange of words between Vit Krejci and Queen, the beef seemed to be over. Jalen Johnson even laughed about it after the game, teasing the rookie for his over-the-top antics.

Queen is looking forward to his next game against the Hawks

The Falcons also poked fun at Queen with a video of the team celebrating their pending victory over the Saints. The post was captioned “Marked safe from Derik Queen,” to which the rookie responded, “Jan 7th, 2026 at 6:30pm central time,” the date and time of the next Hawks-Pels matchup.

Queen has proverbially circled this date on his calendar – this is personal for him. After all, his own selection in the draft became the butt of Hawks fans’ jokes about the draft night trade. How could he not take this personally?

This isn’t the only rivalry that has been provoked this season. In the Hawks’ second matchup against the Orlando Magic, Desmond Bane was ejected for a hard transition foul on Onyeka Okongwu. After the game, Okongwu trolled the Magic by insinuating Bane was letting out steam that has built up from a disappointing season in Orlando.

Between the Magic and Pelicans, Hawks fans have an exciting pair of rivalries to look forward to in the future. The best part about these rivals? Atlanta is clearly better than both!