Either I am on another planet or many of the suggestions of trades on this forum are out of touch with reality. Everyone who has watched Pelicans/Hornets games over past seasons has seen teams pack the paint and dare us to shoot. So the Pelicans got Ryan Anderson. Certainly without him we would have lost the Utah Jazz game (among others). We will not be trading him. Obviously, if we were offered some insane offer (for example, Jimmy Butler + a 1st round draft choice), we would trade him, but something like that will not happen. The same untouchability holds true of Jrue and Tyreke and AD and Asik for other but similar reasons. To my mind to contend we need:
1. One Superstar: Anthony Davis
2. Three borderline All-Stars: Jrue, Tyreke, ?
3. Three really good players: Ryan Anderson, Omer Asik, ?
4. Three good role players: Dante Cunningham, ?, ?
Maybe Austin Rivers, Jeff Withey and/or Russ Smith can become the role players we need. They are not there yet, but even if they work out this gives us the need for one borderline all-star and one really good player. Obviously, the team thought Gordon would be our third borderline all-star and Rivers would be our third really good player and these dreams have not happened.
Dante will never be a really good player because of a lack of foot speed, so he will not move up. Ryan is too slow and weak and too bad on defense and Asik is too limited offensively to move up to a borderline all-star. So where will the missing pieces come from? There are several possibilities:
1. Trade marginal players (Salmons, Fredette, Ajinca, Babbitt, etc.) for a good role player.
2. Use Gordon's salary to get (a) a borderline all-star, (b) two really good players, or (c) more realistically a really good player and a good role player. However, this may take another year.
3. Find someone in Europe.
4. Get lucky in the draft.
etc.
tl;dr We will not trade AD, Jrue, Tyreke, Ryan Anderson or Asik. Think about some other possibilities.