Grading Pelicans 2021 Trade Deadline Moves

[KoMikaera]

I'm giving the Pels a C+.

FO kept the faith with Lonzo, I'm happy about that.
Getting something in return for JJ.
Moving on from Melli.
A couple of guys who could add toughness and defence.
Shame we couldn't move Bledsoe.


What do you guys think ?

[AtlPelsFan]

Would’ve been a B if we could’ve moved bledsoe, but it is what it is. I think our future at center right now is jaxson Hayes and her a Gomez. We should phase out aqua man and give them 2 more Playing time. I like the toughness that James brings and we can match him up against bigger 2-3’s. Lonzo and NAW should be the starting guards. Let hart and the rookie/bledsoe back them up.

[ramsters60]

I'm giving the Pels a C+.

FO kept the faith with Lonzo, I'm happy about that.
Getting something in return for JJ.
Moving on from Melli.
A couple of guys who could add toughness and defence.
Shame we couldn't move Bledsoe.


What do you guys think ?

quite honestly, I would not be surprised if JJ found his stroke again to the point of helping them somewhat.... Melli is a mystery to me and I have always expected much more because of his form.... anyway, time will tell and I think a very average grade might be in order here....Johnson is a tough guy who will bring a rep with him, but we will have to see if his game translates over here....Iwundu is still very young and not sure how much of a chance he will be given.... that leaves a Magic second round pick....

[Pelicanidae]

Hard to rank the moves given that we made basically one.

- Kept Lonzo, bad decision in my opinion that only sets us up for more failure later on, so it's a 1-2 punch of a bad move.
- Kept Bledsoe, which isn't optimal. Could either be a neutral move or a terrible one depending on how they play it: if he keeps eating minutes and then we don't move him in the offseason, it's a dreadful move. If he gets benched and then moved in the summer I don't care.
- Got off JJ's contract which is fine, but did it a year late and consequently got basically nothing of value back from it.

D grade. No atrocious value plays but some bad long term decisions and an inability to recover from earlier mistakes means that the team isn't in a better place than it was before the deadline, and we've managed to create a sword of Damocles for ourselves later on.

[Eman5805]

Hard to look at today as anything but a failure state. Either we set our price unrealistically high or we were getting extremely low balled. But for me, compounding the failure by dumping heavy salary just so we don't lose Lonzo is the worst possible move we can make. I doubt we can work a sign and trade now of any import unless some unforeseen changes occur to shift power balances and a team suddenly really needs a guard.

But letting him walk? I say that's preferable to Lonzo at like $22million a year with player options and trade kickers or whatever poison pill contract someone might tab.

[Funcrusher]

A monkey could 100% do a better job of asset management than David Griffin

[SeapeaNOLA]

I don't even care anymore. It is what it is.

[6warddude]

A monkey could 100% do a better job of asset management than David Griffin

my comedy for the night lol...

[ragincaucasian]

A monkey could 100% do a better job of asset management than David Griffin

BadumbumTiss

[hornetzplaya]

At this point, it is what it is. Let's see what the off season has to offer us. If Lonzo leaves, whatever, what decent players can we add that'll be beneficial to what SVG wants to run? If Lonzo stays for a reasonable amount, how can this core grow together? Will we be able to off load Bledsoe? What will we do with these picks? All I know is, I'm mainly looking forward to the growth of Kira and NAW.

EDIT: Also look at the possibility of a sign and trade for Lonzo. Let's see what happens.

[tdcreator]

I’m disappointed we didn’t trade for Reddish. Maybe we could have gotten him for less than Lonzo but I thought he’d be the perfect buy low prospect. Plus he has some size which is something we need. Other than that very uneventful so I give it a C.

[Silverfoxx]

Hard to rank the moves given that we made basically one.

- Kept Lonzo, bad decision in my opinion that only sets us up for more failure later on, so it's a 1-2 punch of a bad move.
- Kept Bledsoe, which isn't optimal. Could either be a neutral move or a terrible one depending on how they play it: if he keeps eating minutes and then we don't move him in the offseason, it's a dreadful move. If he gets benched and then moved in the summer I don't care.
- Got off JJ's contract which is fine, but did it a year late and consequently got basically nothing of value back from it.

D grade. No atrocious value plays but some bad long term decisions and an inability to recover from earlier mistakes means that the team isn't in a better place than it was before the deadline, and we've managed to create a sword of Damocles for ourselves later on.

I love this. Exactly my thoughts

[pelicanchamp]

We got a team that is growing. Melli and JJ cannot play defense. Their shooting has been terrible. I?m glad they?re gone. We were getting low balled big time most likely and so we couldn?t move Lonzo. It?s better to finish the season to get a big picture view of who should be our starting guards. We might have something special in Kira.... if he plays incredible for the rest of the season then we might just let Lonzo go....

Grade: B-


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[13 - 3]

[johnpagenola]

Hard to rank the moves given that we made basically one.

- Kept Lonzo, bad decision in my opinion that only sets us up for more failure later on, so it's a 1-2 punch of a bad move.
- Kept Bledsoe, which isn't optimal. Could either be a neutral move or a terrible one depending on how they play it: if he keeps eating minutes and then we don't move him in the offseason, it's a dreadful move. If he gets benched and then moved in the summer I don't care.
- Got off JJ's contract which is fine, but did it a year late and consequently got basically nothing of value back from it.

D grade. No atrocious value plays but some bad long term decisions and an inability to recover from earlier mistakes means that the team isn't in a better place than it was before the deadline, and we've managed to create a sword of Damocles for ourselves later on.

What was the market for Lonzo? Grif can't create offers from other teams; this is a matching problem, to use the proper economic theory term. Are you grading the lack of a trade down because the Pels were not willing to give him away?

What was the market for Bledsoe? Why give away FRPs which may get us an asset later? And if we could get rid of Bledsoe with a FRP why can't we include Bledsoe in a trade over the summer to match salaries with an attached FRP to make the trade happen?

JJ spent time with NAW working on his game. From his podcast remarks JJ seems personally invested in the future growth of Zion, BI, Zo and NAW. It is true that JJ's production on the court hasn't been what anyone expected. But now you're expanding the time period of the evaluation from the trade deadline.

I agree that Lonzo is a 5th best player on a contender. So where do we get the #3 and #4 to go with Zion and BI? If they exist, why would anyone trade them to us?

You can't always get what you want. That doesn't warrant a D grade.

[6warddude]

grade A....

we moved JJ and melli......if we keep johnson then he is an upgrade from melli.....the other player 6'6 so thats a plus for me in the back court even if he never play..

didnt think lonzo was going anywhere and im glad because i want to see him,,zion and ingram push for a playoff spot...

knew bledsoe was not going anywhere....

[KoMikaera]

I'm really looking forward to Zion, BI and Lonzo pushing for playoffs too. I also like with Johnson as a Melli upgrade, at 6' 7", that Hart can spend more time defending guards his own height .

[PELICANSFAN]

What was the market for Lonzo? Grif can't create offers from other teams; this is a matching problem, to use the proper economic theory term. Are you grading the lack of a trade down because the Pels were not willing to give him away?

What was the market for Bledsoe? Why give away FRPs which may get us an asset later? And if we could get rid of Bledsoe with a FRP why can't we include Bledsoe in a trade over the summer to match salaries with an attached FRP to make the trade happen?

You can't always get what you want. That doesn't warrant a D grade.

Agree with this. No way anyone can honestly say they are upset that Ball or Bledsoe were not traded unless they know the offers/costs.

[Stalwart385]

JJ was never a long term answer and fell off a year earlier than we hoped.
Melli was a project that didn't work.
Nothing inspiring about what we got in return but it's something.
Just a meh move so a C grade I guess.

[PolishFan]

What was the market for Lonzo? Grif can't create offers from other teams; this is a matching problem, to use the proper economic theory term. Are you grading the lack of a trade down because the Pels were not willing to give him away?

What was the market for Bledsoe? Why give away FRPs which may get us an asset later? And if we could get rid of Bledsoe with a FRP why can't we include Bledsoe in a trade over the summer to match salaries with an attached FRP to make the trade happen?

JJ spent time with NAW working on his game. From his podcast remarks JJ seems personally invested in the future growth of Zion, BI, Zo and NAW. It is true that JJ's production on the court hasn't been what anyone expected. But now you're expanding the time period of the evaluation from the trade deadline.

I agree that Lonzo is a 5th best player on a contender. So where do we get the #3 and #4 to go with Zion and BI? If they exist, why would anyone trade them to us?

You can't always get what you want. That doesn't warrant a D grade.

Very good post

[Taker597]

What I want to know is how Miami hustle so much...

[13 - 3]

Look at what the Knicks have done in a year.

[13 - 3]

Agree with this. No way anyone can honestly say they are upset that Ball or Bledsoe were not traded unless they know the offers/costs.

Dell Demps smiles

[Pelicanidae]

What was the market for Lonzo? Grif can't create offers from other teams; this is a matching problem, to use the proper economic theory term. Are you grading the lack of a trade down because the Pels were not willing to give him away?

What was the market for Bledsoe? Why give away FRPs which may get us an asset later? And if we could get rid of Bledsoe with a FRP why can't we include Bledsoe in a trade over the summer to match salaries with an attached FRP to make the trade happen?

JJ spent time with NAW working on his game. From his podcast remarks JJ seems personally invested in the future growth of Zion, BI, Zo and NAW. It is true that JJ's production on the court hasn't been what anyone expected. But now you're expanding the time period of the evaluation from the trade deadline.

I agree that Lonzo is a 5th best player on a contender. So where do we get the #3 and #4 to go with Zion and BI? If they exist, why would anyone trade them to us?

You can't always get what you want. That doesn't warrant a D grade.

This is, I feel, a very unreasonable response.

1) What was the market for Lonzo? I don't know, but it was almost certainly better than absolutely nothing which is the likeliest ''good'' option left on the table now.

2) What was the market for Bledsoe? Also don't know, but as I put in my actual answer, the grading on this is yet to be seen. It depends what we do next with Bledsoe whether or not keeping him now was good or not - if we use him as an excuse not to invest time into our actual future players like Kira, and then still can't move him in the summer without attaching stuff, it's clearly a bad move: it's cost you the same in assets but it's also got an attached opportunity cost. By contrast, if he's benched and we develop the guys in place of him and then the cost is the same in summer, it's not a bad move but it's a lateral one - you can't grade up on that.

3) I don't heavily believe in the idea that individual players act as mini-coaches for younger players. I buy some degree of improvement based on it, but not enough to derail asset collection: JJ should have been moved either last deadline or in the off-season when his value was highest.

You can't always get what you want but when you can't get any of what you want and the things that you do manage to get are just kicking the can down the road, that's not very good at all.

[KoMikaera]

In this scenario, which guy represents the Pels ?