As we head into the month of February, we already have Nikola Mirotic on his way to play with star power forward Anthony Davis and the New Orleans Pelicans. On Thursday, Mirotic was traded from the Chicago Bulls in exchange for a package that included center Omer Asik, guards Tony Allen and Jameer Nelson, and a first-round pick.
Davis commented on what Mirotic brings to the Pelicans via a tweet from Scott Kushner of The Advocate.
“[Mirotic] is a scorer. He could go alongside with our team. That could be very helpful for us,” Davis said on Thursday.
The news was immediately broken by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, Shams Charania of The Vertical, and Marc Stein of The New York Times. Also, the Pelicans agreed to pick up the $12.5 million salary of Mirotic from the Bulls, according to Bobby Marks of ESPN.
“Acquiring the $12.5M Nikola Mirotic contract now has New Orleans $1.6M below the luxury tax and $2.2M below the hard cap. The Pelicans now have room to sign 2 players to the prorated minimum exception,” Marks said on Thursday.
Mirotic is currently having the best season of his entire career. In 25 games this season with the Bulls, Mirotic is averaging 16.8 points (42.9 percent shooting from behind the arc), 6.4 rebounds, and 1.6 assists per game in roughly 24.9 minutes of action per contest.
This deal still does not necessarily rule out the Pelicans signing a New Orleans native in center Greg Monroe, who reached a contract buyout on Wednesday night with the Phoenix Suns.
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