The New Orleans Pelicans have finally managed to get off the contract of Jordan Hawkins, but it cost them a promising young player.
The New Orleans Pelicans have finally pulled off the moves needed to become roster and tax compliant, having to trade away assets in order to do so.
Tuesday morning's full trade saw the Pelicans send Jordan Hawins, Micah Peavy, a second-round pick and a second-round pick swap to the Memphis Grizzlies in exchange for AJ Johnson and Taj Gibson, per Shams Charania of ESPN. Expectations are that Gibson will be cut and Johnson will compete for a spot through training camp, per Will Guillory of The Athletic.
This was the move that the Pelicans needed to make in order to be able to finalize the signing of former Los Angeles Clippers wing Bennedict Mathurin. That should now be done in the coming days.
New Orleans taking on the fourth-year option for Hawkins seemed short-sighted at the time, and has only proven to be so. Now they are out two second-round picks and a promising young player going into year two because of it.
Hawkins was the No. 14 overall pick back in 2023, and he actually started out promisingly enough. The made threes turned into missed long twos over time and at points last year he was just completely out of the rotation. Maybe a change of scenery can help him find his rhythm again.
Peavy was a second-round pick last year. He had tons of growing pains offensively, but looked like a very promising defensive asset with flashes of potential as a shooter. He did shoot 38.5% from the field and 25.9% from three.
Now they'll get a chance to see what Johnson has to offer as an alternative, but he is certainly not guaranteed to make the final roster.
The 21-year-old posted 3.3 points, 1.1 rebounds and 1.0 assists per game on 32.4/21.1/85.0 shooting splits last year on 10 minutes a night over 48 games. That is not going to help him make the team if he performs at that level.
He will be on a $3.23 million team option this year. He also has a $5.5 million team option for next season, which feels like disaster waiting to happen again if they pick that up.
