These three actions could help clear the New Orleans Pelicans of their new issues following the signing of Bennedict Mathurin.
The New Orleans Pelicans were able to add long-desired wing Bennedict Mathurin to their roster on Wednesday, checking off one task while adding another, as they now have too many players on their roster and are a little bit over the luxury tax.
The Pelicans haven't been super active this year, but that's mostly because they haven't had room to. They've been trying to make trades, but nothing has worked. Now, though, they're forced to make some sort of move.
Here are a couple of ways that they could clear up the space they need to make Mathurin work:
Waive Trendon Watford
This likely won't happen, as New Orleans just signed Watford, but they did bake in the possibility of it by making his contract non-guaranteed to allow for more flexibility around him. The best case against this happening is if it wouldn't open up enough money. It could be part of a bigger wave of moves, though, should the team end up making a trade with someone else.
Keeping Watford is the best-case scenario, though, as he has a lot to bring to the team as someone who can pass and score around the rim with size and positional versatility.
Trade Jordan Hawkins/Jordan Poole
The Pelicans have been trying to make this happen for a while. Exercising the option on Hawkins was a mistake, and the team now realizes it as they try to move off his money. Few teams want to pay $7 million for someone who wasn't able to crack the lineup last season, so it has been hard to pull something off.
New Orleans could pair Hawkins with someone like Micah Peavy, Karlo Matkovic or Bryce McGowens to entice a team slightly more.
As for Poole, he's going to be much harder to trade, given that he is making a little bit over $34 million this season. He has an expiring contract, though, so maybe someone will be more willing to make a trade toward the trade deadline.
Waive-and-stretch someone
The worst-case scenario would be having to end up stretching someone with a bigger contract's money, like Poole and Hawkins. That gets the money off the books and opens up the roster spot right now, but it's just going to kick the can down the road when they could just wait a season and be done with it. Right now, those are the only two players who would really make sense to waive.
