The New Orleans Pelicans are a perplexing team. They entered the 2024-25 NBA season with legitimate title hopes. After trading for Dejounte Murray in the offseason, they had accumulated a small collection of All-Star-caliber players that presented a real threat as a dark-horse championship contender.
However, after a flurry of injuries in the early season, any hope of a playoff run has been completely dashed. The Pelicans sit firmly at the bottom of the Western Conference standings at just 5-20 over a quarter of the way through the season. Now, the franchise's future is completely up in the air due to a lost campaign.
New Orleans could completely tear down their roster this year, turning their unfortunate circumstances into an opportunity to reset the team. As such, the Pelicans have been a primary topic in trade talks in the NBA this season, as any number of their players could be dealt to new teams before the deadline, including Brandon Ingram and CJ McCollum, among others. ESPN's Shams Charania recently reported that executives around the league have been making calls about Herb Jones's availability as well. Just because other teams are interested in Herb's services doesn't mean that he's actually available though.
Should the New Orleans Pelicans trade Herb Jones?
Why the Pelicans shouldn't trade Herb
In many ways, Herb Jones is the spiritual leader of this Pelicans team. If the franchise wanted to maintain any semblance of their identity for the next iteration of this roster, it'd behoove them to keep Jones to set a culture for their next era, especially on the defensive end of the court. Not only is he the best defender on the team, but he's legitimately one of the best defenders in the entire NBA.
Still only 26 years old, there's a chance that we haven't even seen the best version of Herb yet. He's already shown significant growth in several areas of his game, including as a ball-handler, passer, and transition finisher. Last season, he made major strides as a shooter too, hitting a career-best 42 percent from deep.
Herb Jones could be a cornerstone for the Pelicans to build upon regardless of what direction they want to take this team moving forward. He's an elite stopper that can singlehandedly raise the defensive ceiling of his squad. That's a player that's desirable with any personnel around him. It's especially imperative to have a defender of his stature when building around a subpar defender like Zion Williamson. There's a decent chance that New Orleans will lose any deal that has Herb Jones getting traded.
Why the Pelicans should trade Herb
While Jones is only in the fourth year of his career, he's not exactly a young prospect at 26. Even the late bloomers show signs of stardom by the time they're in their mid-20s. For example, Jimmy Butler averaged 20.9 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 4.8 assists as the unquestioned number one option on a Chicago Bulls team that went 42-40 in his age-26 season. He made his second All-Star team that year, and he's practically the poster child for slow-developing unexpected stars.
Herb is a fantastic defender, one who's genuinely capable of transforming a team on that side of the ball. He's one of the primary reasons that the Pelicans have been a middling unit on D during his tenure instead of an awful one. Unfortunately, they've never been a good defensive team even with him locking down. New Orleans is the perfect example of the limits of what a singular defender can do, at least one that's not an interior anchor like Rudy Gobert.
Although Jones has shown development in his game, anyone who believes that he'll ever be more than a replacement-level support piece on offense is naively optimistic. He does have a few traits that are above average, such as his short-roll passing and transition finishing, but he's mostly still a liability on that end of the court.
He may have hit 42 percent of his treys last season, but he still wasn't a great shooter. He was frustratingly hesitant despite his sparkling percentages, making it easy for opposing teams to help off of him and collapse on Zion, Brandon Ingram, and the other Pelicans' ball-handlers. He's only played in seven games so far this season, but it's worth noting that he's also back down to just 30 percent from beyond the arc this year. Until he proves that he can consistently take and make open threes with confidence, defenses will continue to sag off of him to load up on drives. If the Pels had ever made an extended playoff run with Herb on the team, this issue would have become a glaring problem against postseason defenses.
Herb is currently in the second season of a four-year, $54 million deal. His extremely team-friendly contract makes him an extra desirable asset in trades. There's a strong chance that Jones will never be more valuable as a trade piece than he is right now. If the Pelicans don't move him, they risk his stock tanking through any number of reasons, like injury or shooting regression for example. Jaden McDaniels was regarded as one of the most coveted rising stars in the league just a couple of years ago. Now, he's an average role player. This could very well be the case for Herb Jones in a year or two.