The New Orleans Pelicans now have 3 options with Lonzo Ball
New Orleans Pelicans: The Pels could sign and trade Lonzo Ball
A second option would be to orchestrate a sign-and-trade for Lonzo Ball that would allow him to get his max deal and the Pels to get some value for him.
Sign-and-trades are not that common, mostly because the free agent and the team that wants him have all of the leverage and have absolutely no reason to help the New Orleans Pelicans get value for their guy.
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Why would a team give up players for a guy they could realistically just get in free agency? This only works if Lonzo makes getting that 5th year a priority and uses it as leverage in negotiations. Lonzo could potentially get his max deal but also get to another team if that is his goal.
The other problem is that no team is going to offer full value for a guy who wants to leave the team that he’s on, which is how leverage works. The Pels would end up taking a lowball offer that they could have just taken at the trade deadline.
The sign-and-trade is an option, though an unlikely one. It would be more likely that the Pelicans would extend Lonzo and them move him at a future time if they think it is not working out. He is only 23-years-old, so it wouldn’t be a huge risk to sign him to a max deal.
As the trade deadline showed, there are plenty of teams interested in Lonzo Ball, so the Pels can likely still trade him and get more if they wait until next season or beyond.
There is a third option that would be the worst-case scenario.