Pelicans want to trade up to No. 2, 3 in Draft to pick Scoot Henderson

[ad_1]

When healthy to start last season, the Pelicans looked like a playoff team and a potentially dangerous one with Zion Williamson, Brandon Ingram, CJ McCollum and solid role players. Then Zion got hurt, Ingram missed half the season with a toe injury, and the wheels came off in New Orleans. They couldn’t get past the surging Thunder in the play-in game.

New Orleans isn’t just running it back and hoping to stay healthy this time — they want to trade for the No. 2 or No. 3 pick and select Scoot Henderson, reports Shams Charania at The Athletic.

Rule No. 1 around the Draft is to take everything with a grain of salt. It’s no secret both Charlotte and Portland are open to deals to move their picks, but some of the buzz floating around the league was limited interest from teams to trade up for those picks. How serious is New Orleans’ interest, or is this just spin hoping to draw other interested teams out?

What would a trade look like? New Orleans has the No. 14 pick in this draft plus multiple future first-rounders they can throw in a deal (Lakers 2024, Bucks 2025 and 2027, plus their own), and they have young players such as Trey Murphy III and Herbert Jones that opposing teams likely would ask about.

The Blazers and Hornets will ask for Zion, and the Pelicans will instantly will say no. Then the sides will talk. What is impossible to judge from afar is if the Pelicans as an organization are over the Zion experience enough to trade him. If not, then the deal is dead — the potential of Zion may be too much or the Pelicans to walk away from yet. If New Orleans is ready to move on, maybe Portland or Charlotte could make an interesting offer. However, this would be a multiple-pick, multiple-player trade with a larger salary such as Terry Rozier or Gordon Hayward in the deal to balance the money.

If there is a pre-draft trade it will be with Charlotte — and that could bring Brandon Ingram into play (there is frustration with Ingram within the Pelicans, but would they want to commit to a Scott/Zion future?). The buzz around the league is Charlotte is leaning toward taking wing Brandon Miller with the No. 2 pick,…

[ad_2]
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/report-pelicans-want-trade-no-222719130.html?src=rss

Author : NBC Sports

Publish date : 2023-06-12 22:27:19

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.