The New Orleans Pelicans shouldn’t trade Anthony Davis… Yet
The New Orleans Pelicans will surely start taking calls on Anthony Davis immediately, but it could be in the best interest of the team to be patient.
As you’ve surely heard by this point in the day, New Orleans Pelicans’ superstar Anthony Davis has requested a trade from the team. With the trade deadline coming right around the corner next week, you might expect the Pelicans to try to get a deal done quickly so they can move on from the situation and begin their inevitable rebuild. But pump the brakes for a second. While New Orleans could definitely get a pretty nice trade package offered to them from someone in the next 10 days before the deadline, one particular team with noted interest in Davis can’t throw their hat into the ring… Yet.
The Boston Celtics want Anthony Davis, and they want him badly. Where this gets interesting, however, is that the Celtics legally cannot make a trade for Davis until the offseason because of the Derrick Rose Rule. I’ll spare you the boring details, but bottom line, Boston is ineligible to make a trade offer for AD unless they get rid of Kyrie Irving first (per the Rose Rule). The Celtics would surely be unwilling to do this, even for a guy like Davis.
In an effort to simply do their due diligence in making sure they’re getting the best possible return for Davis, it would behoove the Pelicans to wait for Boston to get back in the picture. This argument is solidified when you remember that Boston is absolutely loaded with young talent that they might be willing to part with to land Anthony Davis.
If the Pelicans are able to pry a guy away from Boston like Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, or both, the rebuild process for New Orleans gets expedited instantly. For the record, a trade where Davis is sent away with say E’Twaun Moore in return for Tatum, Brown, and Al Horford works out financially.
Would Boston really be willing to part with two budding stars like Tatum and Brown for Davis? Maybe, maybe not. Jaylen Brown’s numbers are a bit down this season compared to last, so it’s not totally unreasonable to ask for him paired with Tatum for a guy of Davis’ caliber. Regardless, Boston even being able to pitch any sort of offer at New Orleans with the type of assets they have will do nothing but drive the market value up for Davis higher, which works in the Pelicans’ favor. Since other teams aren’t trying to outbid Boston before the trade deadline, why not wait it out until the offseason when the Celtics are back in contention in the Anthony Davis sweepstakes?
The other kicker here is that holding off on a trade till the offseason allows the Pelicans to wait until the NBA Draft Lottery is completed so the draft order is set in stone. This is the first season with the new lottery odds system the NBA has implemented, and it’s a bit trickier now to predict who will land the top picks in the draft. If the Pelicans want to go the route of securing the highest pick possible in return for Davis, punting on making a move until the summer allows the Pelicans a chance to see how the draft field is shaking out, keep scouting college players they want to target, and so on.
The perfect offer could come the Pelicans’ way in the next week or so, or it might not. If not, there is no real reason for New Orleans to simply settle for whatever offer they’ve received that is the least-bad. If no satisfactory offers come in soon, it makes much more sense to wait for Danny Ainge to sweep them off their feet in the offseason, or simply wait for some clarity in the draft order of the 2019 NBA Draft.
As always, keep checking in with Pelican Debrief as we will be keeping you up to date throughout this whole process.