Pelicans: 4 Potential free agent targets with ties to C.J. McCollum

The big splash target: Gary Trent Jr.

If the New Orleans Pelicans wanted to make a big splash this offseason, one target that would make sense is Gary Trent Jr., who played with McCollum for the first two years of his career in the NBA. Trent is coming off a season in which he averaged 17 points per game on 37 percent shooting from 3-point range.

Trent has a player option for next season but is likely to decline that in an attempt to secure a big-money, long-term deal. And, at this point, it’s unlikely that the Toronto Raptors are going to give him the contract that he’s likely going to demand on the open market. Would the Pelicans be willing to do so? That’s an interesting question. If they wanted to, they’d probably have to move some contracts around in order to make room.

But as we’ve seen time and time before in the league, that’s not exactly impossible to pull off during the offseason – especially considering that the Pelicans don’t really have any terribly bad contracts on their books at the moment.

There are many options and avenues for improvement for the Pelicans this summer. The question is, will they be able to pull any off this offseason?