New Orleans only gets one shot at this.
When the team trades Anthony Davis — and expect that deal to be agreed to in advance of the NBA Draft on June 20, or that night, even if it can’t be fully executed until July 1 — they get one shot to jumpstart a roster rebuild around No. 1 pick Zion Williamson as well as point guard Jrue Holiday (who can ideally help this team push toward the playoffs next season). New team Grand Poobah David Griffin knows he needs to maximize return on any trade and he’s going to be smart about this.
Which is why he is pushing toward multi-team deals, something Adrian Wojnarowski reports at ESPN.
According to front offices who’ve engaged in conversations with Griffin, he hasn’t sounded convinced that one team is likely to fulfill his wishes for a Davis deal. To that end, Griffin has been working to find multiteam trade scenarios that could redirect assets for players or picks more preferable to the Pelicans, sources said.
For example, those sorts of scenarios could include the Lakers helping to find a team that hypothetically values Los Angeles’ young players more than New Orleans does, or New York could flip its two first future first-round picks via Dallas into players the Pelicans prefer. New Orleans seems determined to be creative in constructing a deal to maximize the return on Davis, one of the NBA’s elite talents.
The challenge with bringing in a third (or fourth) team is that every team in the trade has to feel they are getting a “win” and it’s not easy to construct deals where three teams are getting needs met.
The teams most active in talks so far are the teams we expect — the Lakers, Clippers, Knicks, and Nets — according to the report. Boston is also engaged in the negotiations, but the question remains how many of their best young players (specifically Jayson Tatum) they would be willing to throw in now that it seems a lock Kyrie Irving leaves via free agency. Boston has to balance how much to give up in a trade vs. its chances of retaining Davis as a free agent in 2020.
All those teams — and others than the mix — want to get a deal done around the draft so they could use the presence of Davis to help lure in major free agents this summer. The Pelicans would like dealt with too so they can move on to their next phase around Williamson.
What ultimately matters in this trade is who Griffin and New Orleans value as players. Which guys do they want?
The buzz for a while has been that the Pelicans have not been as high as others on the Lakers’ young players — Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball, Kyle Kuzma — and would want another team involved to take at least some of those players and get New Orleans players they believe will be a better fit. That said, the Lakers young players are more coveted than the Knicks group around the league. The Clippers and Nets are very interesting possibilities because of their young players (although there are reports the Clippers would not put Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in a trade) but what players do the Pelicans value, and which ones not as much?
Also, after the Raptors success rolling the dice on Kawhi Leonard and Oklahoma City with Paul George, other teams could decide to roll the dice and jump into the mix.
Expect rumors to fly in the next week, but also expect Griffin to keep a lid on things and not let the trade talks become the circus that happened at the trade deadline.
