NBA Draft: How the New Orleans Pelicans Should Use Their Picks

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Devin Vassell could be the ideal wing prospect for the New Orleans Pelicans (Photo by Ryan M. Kelly/Getty Images) /

What The New Orleans Pelicans Should Do With Pick #13: Select the Best Wing Available

In this year’s NBA Draft, I like many other draft evaluators believe the middle of the first-round is the sweet spot for finding a quality rotation player with some upside, specifically at the wing positions.

This is an ideal situation for the New Orleans Pelicans because one thing that was afflicting pain on them towards the end of the season was the lack of depth at their forward positions.

For major stretches of this season, New Orleans was playing shooting guard Josh Hart out of position as a forward while then trying to patch together the rest of their frontcourt rotation with replacement-level players like Nicolo Melli and Kenrich Williams.

Related Story. 3 Options for the 13th Pick. light

With the number of quality wings that are going to available in this part of the draft, the New Orleans Pelicans should be looking to fix that weakness first.

Wing players like Aaron Nesmith, Devin Vassell, and Shaddiq Bey all ranked highly on our recent Big Board (which you can view here), and certainly one of them is bound to fall to the Pelicans at 13.

Adding one of those 3-and-D wings to their rotation will help boost both the team’s three-point shooting and their horrible 27th ranked scoring defense as they will gain a more effective wing presence.