With the Washington Wizards reportedly ready to start over, could the New Orleans Pelicans swoop in and capitalize on a three-team Anthony Davis trade?
The New Orleans Pelicans should look to use any available leverage they can find when trying to build the best possible Anthony Davis trade scenario this summer. One thing the Pelicans front office could do is try to capitalize on other dramatic situations other teams are experiencing. Take, for example, the Washington Wizards.
The Wizards are currently on the outside looking in when you scan the Eastern Conference playoff seeding. As it stands, the team sits at a disappointing 11th place, right between the Charlotte Hornets and Atlanta Hawks. Their star point guard John Wall is out rehabbing from injury until sometime around the next All-Star Break in 2020. Former key players Otto Porter Jr. and Kelly Oubre Jr. were dealt elsewhere around the trade deadline last month.
Clearly, the Wizards are open to wheeling and dealing in order to rebuild for the future. In fact, they made it clear to potential trade suitors that both John Wall and Bradley Beal, their other all-star guard, could be traded away for the right offer. This entire scenario seems absolutely perfect for the New Orleans Pelicans to take advantage of.
In fact, a trade that gets the Pelicans one of these stars from the Wizards AND Jayson Tatum from the Boston Celtics might even be realistic given Washington’s situation. Check it out:
Wow. This would be an absolute blockbuster. Let’s go ahead and assume draft picks and other assets might have to be swapped around a bit too in order for this one to really take shape, but there is something here that could benefit all teams involved.
For the New Orleans Pelicans, they receive their superstar of the future in Jayson Tatum, as well as an already established star player in Bradley Beal that still has two full seasons on his current contract. The Pelicans roll out a lineup featuring Beal, Tatum, and Jrue Holiday in 2019-2020, which is almost a guaranteed playoff team if other key role players do their jobs and everyone stays relatively healthy.
The Wizards receive two young, hard-nosed players that they can look to build and grow around as they try to figure out what their future direction truly should be. Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart are two guys you can count on be anchors for your rotations and bring consistency and clarity to a franchise that has been without those things for a while now.
If the New Orleans Pelicans are patient and shrewd, they could walk away from this whole Anthony Davis trade debacle arguably in better shape for the future than they were before Davis made his demands. If a deal like this is possible, New Orleans absolutely needs to figure it out.