New Orleans Pelicans: This Trade Shows the Real Value of Jrue Holiday

New Orleans Pelicans: Trading Jrue Holiday to the Atlanta Hawks

Trading Holiday to the Hawks

The New Orleans Pelicans are almost certain to offer Brandon Ingram a max contract extension this offseason, which will more or less eat up their entire cap.

They’ll have roughly $29 million in cap space before signing Ingram, so depending on where the cap lands and Ingram’s contract starts, they could have less than $4 million to spend on a center, backup point guard and another forward.

The “don’t trade Jrue Holiday” crowd should know that it’s a cap issue for the Pelicans, not a player issue. The Pelicans had the best starting lineup in the NBA last year but it didn’t matter because their bench was terrible.

If they want to be competitive they need to get a bigger and deeper roster or it won’t matter how good the starting five is. Here is a trade with Atlanta that gets back some useful players, opens up some cap space and sets the table for future moves.

This is just a hypothetical, as Atlanta is one of the teams that will have the cap space to absorb Holiday’s contract without sending a big one back.

The Knicks, Pistons and Hornets will also have lots of cap space, so there are other options out there. This gets Atlanta a defensive guard to pair with Trae Young without giving up any of their core pieces.

The Pelicans might have to throw in their #13 pick to make it work, but even so, this would be an interesting offer, as it would allow them to fill two areas of weakness without taking on a huge salary.

It would also give them two picks in the draft which they could package to make another move, or just take and add young talent to their core.

This trade would also set up future trades.