The New Orleans Pelicans are going into the NBA trade deadline armed with two draft picks in what most agree is an uninspiring 2024 class. Odds are the organization opts to defer the selection owed by the Los Angeles Lakers until the heralded 2025 NBA Draft.
However, the Lakers' struggles make it difficult to ignore other available options. If LeBron James and Anthony Davis cannot lead a resurgence over the back half of the season, that 2024 pick gets a lot more valuable—maybe even more than a selection next year.
The problem is assigning proper value and then getting someone else to take on the risk of that bet before the lottery order is set. Will anyone gamble on the 10th pick in 2024 being better than a pick in the 20s in 2025? Would the Pelicans even want to give it up a first-round pick with deferral options in a move before the trade deadline?
The value of this particular asset has a wide variance because of a few recent developments. New Orleans will have a lot more help around Zion Williamson for a playoff run if the front office plays it right. If not, they'll end up with a non-lottery pick in 2025 and a few wasted chances to upgrade. Thankfully for Pelicans vice president David Griffin, it's becoming easier to survey the landscape by the day.
Rich Paul, LeBron James pressuring subpar Lakers
James has a player option for next season and has been open in the past about wanting to play with his son, Bronny James. The NBA scoring champion is starting to apply other forms of soft power pressure on the Lakers' front office. Amid another subpar season, whispers of discontent are coming out of Hollywood. Rich Paul is already shutting down trade rumors and the road is about to get more challenging for Los Angeles.
The Lakers (25-25) are playing .500 ball after 50 games. They have only five home games in February and the league's ninth-toughest schedule the rest of the season. Their All-Stars are starting to feel the pain of shouldering most of their team's burdens. They laid claim to the In-Season Tournament title in November, but that run took a major physical toll. For instance, both James and Davis have missed recent games due to nagging injuries.
Surprisingly, Los Angeles pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the year against the Celtics as James and Davis watched from the sidelines. They still woke up in ninth place in the Western Conference and the injuries are mounting. Jarred Vanderbilt is expected to miss several weeks with a right foot injury, leaving Los Angeles without one of its best defenders and rebounders at the worst possible time.
The Lakers currently own the league's 12th-worst record and a fall into the bottom-10 is a coin-flip bet. Vanderbilt, Cam Reddish and Gabe Vincent are still weeks, if not months, away from returning. Austin Reaves and Rui Hachimura have regressed considerably in 2023-24, especially from three-point range. James and Davis are bruised up but have to slog through seven games until the All-Star break.
Three of those games comes at home, but only two are against teams with a worse record than Los Angeles. Another three come against NBA Finals hopefuls, while the Pelicans visit the Lakers on February 9th. Los Angeles having a 26-30 record at the break is a very real possibility. Still, it would be nearly impossible for the Lakers to finish the season with a record worse than seven teams. Their 2024 pick could still land in the top-four despite long odds, but a top-8 or top-10 pick would be a reasonable wager.
Pelicans likely to land Lakers' 2024 top-10 pick…if kept
Again, deferring Los Angeles' pick to 2025 is the likely play, but is still more of a game for New Orleans. The Lakers seemingly always reload and there is no way to read any James tea leaves with certainty so soon before free agency. Still, there are a few reasons why Griffin and the front office would opt to trade the pick or make a selection instead of using it later. The probability of the 2025 pick falling in the 20s is too high for the Pelicans to not try and extract an asset with a bit more concrete future value.
That includes exercising the right to use the pick this season. Some mock drafts speculate Isaiah Collier could go first overall this summer; others have the USC product falling to the Pelicans at 14. If Los Angeles does not bottom out, it's hard to see New Orleans getting a better player than Collier in 2025. Even a flier on Zach Edey at 14th this summer is arguably better than rolling the dice on a pick next year.
There could be at least one other franchise thinking the same thing. Perhaps they have a useful piece the Pelicans would want to add before the postseason. New Orleans can drive up the market by finding two franchises to fight over the asset. One team might have a 2024 prospect targeted while another may need a late lottery pick's salary on the books in 2025.
The Atlanta Hawks, for example, do not have a first-rounder in 2025. The Brooklyn Nets have no 2024 selections and get a first-rounder from the Phoenix Suns in 2025. Both the Nets and Hawks are retooling for the future and shopping their key contributors to aid that process. Then there are the handful of luxury-tax teams looking to shed salary. The Golden State Warriors might be the most desperate to take a chance on the pick swap just to save tens of millions in luxury tax bills.
The first part of Griffin's sales pitch is getting another organization to believe the Lakers' 2024 selection has top-10 value. If Los Angeles regroups this season instead of next summer, it's no longer a problem for the Pelicans. If they don't, Griffin can point to a useful veteran player instead of a late-lottery prospect on a $6-8 million deal.
2024 NBA Draft picture is pretty clear compared to 2025
There are at least seven teams very unlikely to finish with a better record than the Lakers no matter how their season plays out. The Detroit Pistons, Washington Wizards, Charlotte Hornets and Toronto Raptors are the Eastern Conference tankers. The Memphis Grizzlies, Portland Trail Blazers and San Antonio Spurs are bringing up the rear in the Western Conference.
The Brooklyn Nets and Atlanta Hawks are a few games behind Los Angeles as well. Both franchises are still trying to decide on a direction for the rest of the season. So are the Houston Rockets and Golden State Warriors, but both are fighting for playoff spots. The Utah Jazz are way ahead of their rebuilding schedule and are right on the Lakers' heels in the standings.
Good luck predicting how the rest of this season and next season play out. The Lakers have only six games remaining against likely lottery teams. Even then, predicting how many wins the Los Angeles gets over 82 games is a fool's bet, according to James.
“That's our record. It is what it is,” James said. “We could, at any given night, beat any team in the NBA. And on any given night, we can get our a** kicked by any team in the NBA.”
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