The NBA is a league that fosters a lot of revisionist history and retrospection. It's easy to look back at the way a team was built and operated to try to identify potential pitfalls that eventually resulted in that franchise failing to complete the one common goal across the association: winning a championship. It's especially easy when a team has had as many issues as the New Orleans Pelicans have had in recent history.
Some may look back at the Anthony Davis saga and wonder if there was anything the franchise could have done to prevent his forceful exit to join LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers. Others may point to the Pelicans' acquisition of Zion Williamson as the moment that doomed New Orleans to a half-decade of misery so far.
For a long time, the main point of contention with the Pelicans was their mismatched star pairing of Brandon Ingram alongside Big Z. The duo clearly had too many overlapping strengths and weaknesses to complement each other enough to both reach their full potentials and drag this team over the hump. And yet, the franchise dragged out Ingram's inevitable departure for several years. If New Orleans never reaches the pinnacle with Zion, there will be plenty of speculation over whether they waited too long to cut bait with Brandon Ingram. Or, now, they may wonder if the Pelicans wound up trading him to the wrong place.
Should the Pelicans have traded Brandon Ingram to the Atlanta Hawks instead?
We recently found out the Pelicans could have gotten RJ Barrett in exchange for Brandon Ingram from the Toronto Raptors instead of their actual return package of Kelly Olynyk, Bruce Brown Jr., and draft picks. While I personally believe that it was a mistake for New Orleans to turn down the Barrett offer, the logic behind their decision does make sense.
In the same report, HoopsHype's Michael Scotto revealed that the Atlanta Hawks were also interested in acquiring Ingram at the deadline:
"Sources told HoopsHype that the Hawks and Pelicans had several three-team trade conversations, which included two of the following four players leaving Atlanta in different trade scenarios for Ingram that ultimately fell through: Clint Capela, Onyeka Okongwu, De’Andre Hunter, and Bogdan Bogdanovic."
It's intriguing that New Orleans turned down a chance to add either Clint Capela or Onyeka Okongwu, considering how desperately they've needed another man in the middle this season and will continue to need another viable center alongside rookie phenom Yves Missi.
There's a multitude of reasons why a deal never materialized sending Ingram to Atlanta. Perhaps they couldn't find a willing third team to make it work or maybe the Hawks were unwilling to include the draft capital necessary to outbid the Raptors. Hopefully, the Pelicans will find the success necessary to erase any lingering doubts surrounding the Brandon Ingram era and its ultimate ending. Otherwise, this potential trade that fell through with Atlanta could become a recurring topic for all the wrong reasons.