New Orleans Pelicans should trade 2020 first rounder for talent

After striking gold and picking frequently in the 2019 NBA Draft, the New Orleans Pelicans should feel comfortable moving this year’s top choice.

The New Orleans Pelicans are showing strides as a team and continue to rack up wins, not only against the teams they should beat but against teams that are going to be tough outs when it comes time for the NBA Playoffs.

Heading into the trade deadline, the team is doing a nice job molding into a nice stable of complementary players, making it hard for Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations David Griffin to do too much tinkering with their player talent.

Winning by a comfortable 125-111 margin on the road against the Cleveland Cavaliers last night, the Pelicans improved to 19-29 on the season, still 4.5 games behind the Memphis Grizzlies for the eighth seed in the conference.

While the Pelicans are winning with what they have and doing a good job growing from within, the team feels like it could use one more piece, someone who can help them seal out some of the other tough teams going for the last spot in the playoffs.

Teams don’t seem that interested in going away in the West. Last night, the Grizzlies defeated the Denver Nuggets and Phoenix Suns crushed the Dallas Mavericks, both winning upsets to help them hold rank over the New Orleans Pelicans.

In order to make a difference in the Western Conference playoff picture, the Pelicans would do themselves a favor by adding one more piece of quality, rotation-level talent into the mix.

The best way they can do that? Potentially, offering their 2020 first-round pick into a package could be an efficient way to make the current roster better and to avoid disruption by adding more incredibly young players into their already young core.

Trading that first-round pick could be the difference between an alright player on an expiring contract or a notably better player who might have a little more time and change left on a deal.

Certainly, names like Derrick Rose and Robert Covington seem like players who could be had if the New Orleans Pelicans can stack a pick and perhaps one of the Lakers’ future selections received from the Anthony Davis trade this summer.

With plenty of youth already in development, the New Orleans Pelicans would have fewer projects to worry about by trading 2020 pick.

Certainly, there’s always an opportunity cost to trading a first-round pick. However, there’s just not a whole lot of game-changing talent at the top of the 2020 NBA Draft.

Seemingly, the winners of this draft group won’t be the ones who strike early, but the ones who find diamonds in the rough in the late first and second rounds.

Thanks to trades made during the Dell Demps era, the team has three second-round picks their selections in addition to the picks from the Washington Wizards and Milwaukee Bucks.

While fans could get excited about someone like James Wiseman or La’Melo Ball, the Pelicans probably won’t have a chance to win the lottery and select either player. It doesn’t help that the New Orleans Pelicans already have a comfortable stable of talent at the center and point guard positions.

Right now, standing as the eleventh best team in the NBA, the Pelicans have just a 2% chance to grab the top selection and a 9.4% chance at a top-four pick, per Tankathon.

After picking Zion Williamson, Jaxson Hayes, and Nickeil Alexander-Walker in the first round of last year’s draft, Didi Louzada in the second round, and signing first-year forward Nicolò Melli over from Europe during the last offseason, the team has plenty of young, in-house talent.

Additionally, Louzada is averaging 10.3 points, 3.7 rebounds, and shooting 41% from the floor in the NBL, a highly-competitive league that’s left many feeling optimistic about the NBA ceiling for the 20-year-old guard.

Trading a first-round pick can be dangerous for teams, but in rare cases, the value of a player can really outweigh the value of a pick. It’s the ever-challenging world of comparing the known with the unknown commodities that separate the good front offices from the great ones.

David Griffin has done a really nice job building this young core of New Orleans Pelicans players, thanks in no small part to a little lottery luck a season ago. Adding one more player just helps this team strengthen in the short term, as they race to the eighth seed.

Heading into the trade deadline, it doesn’t seem likely that the New Orleans Pelicans will make any team-altering moves, as the market is pretty cold this year. Instead, they’ll join the rest of the league in simply trying to solidify their roster for a playoff push.