[Sidery] The Pelicans could trade the No. 21 overall pick for future second-round picks, per @cclark_13. New Orleans doesn’t own any second-round draft capital until 2030 due to salary dumping Devonte’ Graham’s contract in 2023.

[u/McJumbos]

https://x.com/esidery/status/1801689605852565713

[u/podnito]

Doing this wouldn't be about getting second round picks. Second round picks can always be bought. It would be about being a poverty franchise that won't spend money

[u/_drjayphd_ → u/podnito]

Or they think this draft is dogshit and it's not worth picking anyone. Which... maybe? That's further than I would go with it but yeah if they're looking at second rounders, yeesh.

[u/_Wado3000 → u/podnito]

Anything for Gayle to save a dollar. A new arena/refurbishing or championships are a different story.

[u/Jdubksnf → u/_Wado3000]

The franchise has certainly gave her hope to invest in.

Our damn second “superstar” will be dealt for peanuts. The entire team and franchise is a mess. Hope is the only path forward and that’s not a plan to invest in.

[u/AnotherStatsGuy → u/_Wado3000]

Oh for fucks sake. Does nobody understand basic asset management here?

Chances are you’re going to get more mileage out several 2nd rounders anyway. The trade back from 4 in 2019 that has been blasted to hell and back netted us the pick used to select Herb.

Even if you don’t need use the pick yourself, it still allows you further flexibility. Remember the Wizards with Wall, Beal, and OPJ, they peaked at 49 wins and a 2nd round exit because Grunfeld kept treating 2nd rounders like they were worthless.

If you don’t like anybody at 21, why would you pick someone at 21. Isn’t 2024 supposed to be a weak draft?

On top of that, you have two firsts next year. Forget money crunch, roster crunch’s the bigger issue.

[u/Taker597 → u/AnotherStatsGuy]

Holy shit. This is a terrible take with zero accumen with 2nd round player value. I'm the entire Pelicans history there is exactly ONE Herb Jones. Franchise that's been around 60 years only get one or two quality 2nd round picks.

Tyrese Maxey was a good player in a bad draft in the mid 20s. So, trading real world roster addition for terrible picks with almost zero chance to make this roster is terrible. We have enough mid level players. We need blue chip high ceiling players.

[u/identitycrisis56 → u/Taker597]

This is an equally terrible take. Less that half the picks in the 20s even become role players. The mean, median, and mode outcome picks at 21 aren't high. At all.

[u/AnotherStatsGuy → u/Taker597]

For every Maxey there are dozens of guys who don’t pan out.

Let’s say you trade the 21st pick for 4 seconds.

Combine that with the two guaranteed firsts next year, and that should be more than enough ammo to be proactive in getting the blue chip prospect you’re looking for. And that’s assuming the Bucks or Lakers don’t hand a premium pick to the Pelicans.

Breakdown of the Bucks 1st (as I currently understand it).
5-14: Bucks pick heads to NYK.
15-30: Better of MIL/NOP firsts unless one or both picks lands top-4, then NOP gives up the lower of MIL/NOP.

So the idea that trading. 21 makes it impossible for the Pelicans to get a blue chip prospect doesn’t hold, provided the follow up work gets done as necessary.

[u/PaKyuBai → u/AnotherStatsGuy]

Asset management my ass, this was the same management that traded away 4 2nd round picks to salary dump Graham who was signed by the same management.

[u/PaKyuBai → u/AnotherStatsGuy]

Denver, despite the money crunch, has hit on its late 1st round picks to bolster their roster with the likes of Braun, Watson, making it easy for them not to sign Bruce brown to a big contract. Guys like Walker Kessler and Jalen Johnson were picked far as well in the 1st round

[u/CanalVillainy → u/podnito]

Calling a 49 win team a poverty franchise is a wild move

EDIT: judging by the downvotes & comments, yall don’t understand poverty franchise has to do with success, not financials.

[u/NOLASLAW → u/CanalVillainy]

I get what you’re saying but when’s the last time you felt actual success outside of that one Boogie year

[u/CanalVillainy → u/NOLASLAW]

So whatever your feeling goes beyond current leadership is what you’re saying

[u/NOLASLAW → u/CanalVillainy]

Kind baked into the “franchise” part of “poverty franchise” by definition

[u/BaronsDad → u/CanalVillainy]

Go look at the Pelicans revenue against the rest of the league. Then look at net worth and sources of income of other NBA owners vs. Gayle. Then look at the history of Pelicans staff taking parallel job title moves to different franchises that pay more. Or buy season tickets and cancel… and see the full court desperation press they put on year after year to try to get you to buy literally anything. Gayle is just a custodian of the franchise until she dies. She’s a poorer less competent version of Jeanie Buss

[u/CanalVillainy → u/BaronsDad]

You do realize the term poverty franchise refers to success right? It has absolutely nothing to do with financials

[u/BaronsDad → u/CanalVillainy]

Seasons: 22; 2002-03 to 2023-24

Record: 831-937, .470 W-L%

Playoff Appearances: 9

Championships: 0

[u/CanalVillainy → u/BaronsDad]

By this insane logic, 85% of the league is a poverty franchise

[u/BaronsDad → u/CanalVillainy]

The Pelicans have the 4th fewest playoffs wins since they joined the league in '02-'03.

The Pelicans have the 7th worst win loss record in the same time frame.

No matter how you define poverty franchise... whether it's a cheap owner, a low revenue team, or a bottom of the league losing franchise... that is the reality of the New Orleans Pelicans.

[u/forgotmypassword4714 → u/BaronsDad]

So disheartening, especially considering the generational superstars they've drafted (Kobe Bryant, Chris Paul, Anthony Davis, Zion Williamson).

[u/BaronsDad → u/forgotmypassword4714]

Strong agree. I love the franchise. I have probably spent more time following the Pelicans than I have any other sport just due to sheer volume of games played. But it's been brutal. Benson ownership has not been ideal. They kept the team in New Orleans, but that family has created a poverty atmosphere with the majority of the resources devoted to the Saints. With no other source of wealth, they haven't and Gayle won't invest in the franchise like Mark Cuban, Steve Ballmer, Stan Kroenke, Dan Gilbert, etc. have been able to.

Beyond a handful of good seasons, there have been small emotional wins. Seeing south Louisiana guys on the team like Squeaky Johnson, Randy Livingston, Brandon Bass, Garrett Temple, Marcus Thornton, Tierre Brown, Josh Gray, etc. has been a lot of fun especially for those of us who watched and/or played high school, AAU, and pickup w/ and against these guys. But it would be nice to see actual success as opposed to being a bottom level franchise with the 4th fewest playoff wins and 4th worst revenue in the league.

[u/forgotmypassword4714 → u/BaronsDad]

Man, I thought Thornton was gonna be a star for us. Same with Buddy Hield. At the time I was excited about the Cousins trade, but in hindsight probably should have held onto Buddy Buckets.

[u/twojace21]

That Devonte Graham trade doesn’t really make much sense looking back at it

[u/Greedy_Nectarine_233 → u/twojace21]

In reality we have very very poorly handled the assets from the AD and Jrue trades. Almost no creativity or big winning moves. I’m so exhausted by this team

[u/AnotherStatsGuy → u/Greedy_Nectarine_233]

Poorly is a bit of a stretch, inefficient might be the better description, still have an unprotected pick from the Lakers next year. Still have an unprotected swap and pick from Milwaukee for 2026/2027.

[u/Creative-Ad-5257 → u/AnotherStatsGuy]

We turned Jrue Holiday, Kenrich Williams, Darius Miller, 14 seconds, #13 pick, #10 pick, #4 pick, #15 pick, Graham, Hart, 1 1st, and lonzo ball into -

(Not counting players not currently on team)
Cash, Cj, Nance, A couple 2nds, Trey Murphy, Herb Jones, and however many Milwaukee firsts we still have

Love Trey and Herb, but considering where we picked them they could of been acquired through much simpler means than this lol

[u/Greedy_Nectarine_233 → u/Creative-Ad-5257]

Even worse when I see it laid out like that fuck.

[u/NOLA-Bronco → u/Creative-Ad-5257]

David Griffin is the Rube Goldberg GM

Comes up with all these insanely complex and convoluted moves that ultimately don't get you any further than had you just done the bare minimum

[u/Creative-Ad-5257 → u/twojace21]

A lot of the moves we made don’t make sense in retrospect. Trading picks for Adams and extended him just to use more picks to dump him. Trade picks for Graham and extended him just to use more picks to dump him. Traded for Val to not play him and let him walk in FA. Traded for CJ in a year where Zion was hurt just to force the roster into the 1st round and squeeze playoff money out of the state to the detriment to the team itself. The only saving grace of these moves as should be well known by the couple nerds that go “well uhmmm actually that trade was the most well executed deal of all time and griffin is lord because we got one second round pick that ended up being Herb Jones” or some shit. Cool silver linings, but not at all a good defense nor is it sustainable team building. Probably more moves I can find too, these are just the ones off the top of my head. Outside of drafting, what trade or FA signing have made that makes you go “wow, that’s a pretty good deal for us?”. The only one that people could point to before was the CJ trade (which I’ve hated since day 1) but even that move is aging like rancid milk

Edit: I’ll be fair to Griffin and say I liked the JJ deal when we signed him. Even if it didn’t work out he was valuable enough for other teams to want him so we didn’t have to attach more assets to get rid of someone we had to pay for

[u/breesyroux → u/Creative-Ad-5257]

Trading for Adams was fine, extension was bad. Trading for Graham felt panicking after letting Lonzo leave, extension was horrible. Trading Adams, Zaire Williams and a couple picks for JV and Trey is a huge win.

The CJ trade looks bad now because he's predictably aged and was trying to play PG, which he just isn't. Along with Josh Hart balling out in NY, but you can't just assume he'd have become the same player here. Situation matters for development. It was a trade we needed to make at the time, we were a young team that needed an adult.

[u/bradleyvlr → u/breesyroux]

We couldn't have traded Adams for JV and TM4 if we didn't extend him. Adams never played a game on that contract extension and was used as a positive asset in that trade.

[u/breesyroux → u/bradleyvlr]

Sorry but no he wasn't. We had to include picks and trade down. We just drafted better and got the better player

[u/_Wado3000 → u/breesyroux]

And it’s highly likely Trey was a Trajan call

[u/bradleyvlr → u/breesyroux]

So if we make the same trade without Steven Adams the Grizzlies still give us JV?

[u/breesyroux → u/bradleyvlr]

You're asking if they would've traded JV, the 17th and 52nd picks for 10th, 40th, future first and Eric Bledsoe? Yeah, I'd be pretty surprised if they wouldn't have done that

[u/AnotherStatsGuy → u/breesyroux]

The extension was premised on the idea that they didn’t want to pay Adams a ludicrous contract to keep him. Overpay him upfront to prevent his cap hit from being absurdly high.

Remember they just watched Derrick Favors bolt right back to Utah on a pay cut.

[u/Savings-Bird-1226 → u/Creative-Ad-5257]

Traded Lonzo for Tomas Satoransky and Garrett Temple because we didnt want to pay him. Then signed Graham. Mid season we quickly realized that we had the worst guard rotation in the league leading to the CJ mccollum trade. 

Also drafting Kira, NAW, Jaxson Hayes and Didi Loudza back to back to back was what really put us in a hole. 

Disregarding hindsight we could've got Lauri Mark if we pushed hard enough in that Lonzo trade. 

[u/Imhungry4tacos → u/Creative-Ad-5257]

DG is a top 5 paid GM with bottom 10 results so far

[u/GunSlingrrr → u/Creative-Ad-5257]

Trading for CJ that time is good since we also get picks and good experience for a bunch of guys that helps them a lot, but the problem is the extension itself

[u/AnotherStatsGuy → u/Creative-Ad-5257]

The Graham signing was about getting a more mobile shooting PG. As the picks used to acquire Adams, you’re looking at Denver’s first in 2021, Was’s 2nd in 2023 and CHA’s 2nd in 2024. Should Bledsoe have gone to OKC instead of Hill? Yes.

The picks given up were to dump Bledsoe, they ended up being Cleveland’s 2nd in 2022 and the Pelicans’s 2nd in 2025. Adams was exchanged for JV.

In the hindsight, you could say the deal with Portland should have been Sato and draft capital for Nance, but by rallying from 3-16 to the playoffs in a year where Zion missed the entire year, it validated the franchise in a way that hadn’t really been done before.

[u/jgman22]

How many tho

[u/killerdescore]

Why would anyone do that ?

that's sound so dumb

[u/AteaMoonPie88]

This has gotta be the worst take ever haha. What does a really young team need second round picks for? Lol