The New Orleans Pelicans were forced to move a different direction after Anthony Davis had made it clear he was ready to move on from The Big Easy. The team quickly pivoted to move Nikola Mirotic and soon enough considered adding other potential cogs like Washington Wizards shooting guard Bradley Beal to make up for the loss of their franchise player.

Shams Charania of The Athletic said as much during a guest appearance in Complex's Load Management podcast, noting that the Pelicans were among the teams to show interest in Beal:

“New Orleans was a team that last year I heard looked into it… The Lakers at one point had interest in Beal. If you have interest in winning basketball games, you're gonna have interest in Bradley Beal,” said Charania. “But everything he's said so far, he wants to stay a Wizard. The Wizards have said they want to keep him. I don't expect something on him until we see John Wall and Brad Beal play again.”

Part of the Pelicans swirling for options was the unknown status of Jrue Holiday, who had been a loyal partner to Anthony Davis and could have looked for other options as a veteran two-way dynamo.

Yet Holliday had his roots in New Orleans and was hoping to see the rebuild through with a new wave of players, one that would soon become Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, Josh Hart, and eventually Zion Williamson after the team got the No. 1 overall pick in the 2019 NBA Draft.

Should Holiday be moved at some point, the Pelicans could revisit this interest in Beal, who's had a career-season since, ranking as the league's second leading scorer.