What could the New Orleans Pelicans get from the Memphis Grizzlies in a Jordan Hawkins trade?
Most of the New Orleans Pelicans trade talk this offseason has been centered around Trey Murphy, but it's actually Jordan Hawkins who is the most likely player to be traded in the next couple of weeks.
Hawkins is entering the final year of his contract, a $7 million option that the front office picked up before last season and now regrets. He showed a lot of potential as a shooter out of the gates in his career, but has fallen on hard times with the Pelicans.
The 24-year-old posted 5.1 points, 1.7 rebounds and 0.8 assists per game on 36.6/34.8/85.2 shooting splits and just 13.6 minutes a night. A disappointing decline from the seasons before.
The coaching staff was in a rough spot where they wanted to get him minutes and shots to potentially get out of the slump, but the minutes had gotten too bad to justify and he fell out of the rotation.
Still, this is a player with a pure jump shot and some team out there could feel like they can fix him. He had two 30-plus point games as a rookie. It would be a low-risk to after to him with a solid reward if they are able to get him back into his lottery pick form.
New Orleans has had a few discussions about Hawkins, but the only team that has been publicly connected to them so far is the Memphis Grizzlies. This would be a solid destination for him that doesn't take much thinking to understand.
The Grizzlies are in full-on rebuild mode. They can take on this one season of Hawkins without much worry. It's an environment that would certainly allow him the chance to earn more playing time than with the Pelicans right now.
For a while, it was assumed that New Orleans could potentially go after Kentavious Caldwell-Pope in a Hawkins trade. KCP had accepted a $21.6 million option, which is a lot of money for what he would do, but he is at least someone that the team could clearly use. He accepted a buyout, though, and is now with the Philadelphia 76ers.
KCP is really the only salary filler on the roster that would make much sense for the Pelicans, so at this point, a trade with them would probably just be two second round picks. D'Angelo Russell accepted a $6 million player option so that would fit, but he's just another ball-handler that would get lost in the fold. Jerami Grant is making far too much to consider.
