A Reappraisal Of The New Orleans Pelicans’ Trade For C.J. McCollum

At the 2022 NBA trade deadline, the New Orleans Pelicans, after some restocking since the departure of Anthony Davis two and a half years before, went out buying. They took some of the more minor pieces of draft capital they had yielded in the dismantling of their previous era (specifically, a protected first-round pick in 2022 that has subsequently been deferred to 2025, and second-round picks in 2026 and 2027), paired it with good young guard Josh Hart, faltering prospects Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Didi Louzada, and the contract of Tomas Satoransky, and swapped it all in exchange for veterans C.J. McCollum, Larry Nance and Tony Snell from the Portland Trail Blazers.

Louzada, Satoransky and Snell are now out of the league, and despite being re-traded a couple more times since then, Alexander-Walker still has not consistently gotten it going. The trade was essentially therefore one of Hart and some less-than-premium picks far in the future in exchange for McCollum and Nance, two ready-to-go veterans with proven qualities, one in each of the frontcourt and backcourt.

Every team would welcome those two in trade. They are quality players with unblemished records, positional flexibility and consistent production. Nothing about either of them has been disappointing in New Orleans; they have performed exactly as advertised. And even when knowing that Josh Hart (now in New York) really is quite the excellent role player, yielding Nance and CJ in trade for so comparatively little by way of outgoing assets was a move that improved the team.

There can still however be an argument made that the trade was a mistake. Or rather, perhaps it would be fairer to say that it may not have been the right trade to make.

Such an argument has little if anything to do with McCollum and/or Nance as both players and people. It instead is more to do with the financial picture of the franchise, the resultant depth chart, and about what they cannot now.

As constructed, the Pelicans have only a small amount of wiggle room under the luxury tax threshold, circa. $3 million in the 2022/23 season. Being in such close proximity to the threshold has meant being unable to spend their Mid-Level and Bi-Annual Exceptions this season, significantly inhibiting their ability to further improve the team, and being forced to facilitate any trades – such as the one at the deadline with the San Antonio Spurs that saw them swap Devonte’ Graham for Josh Richardson – with further draft capital to offset the inability to take on further salary.

This is not the use of the draft capital that they had in mind. More Herb Jones types was the plan. Alas.

Luxury tax proximity/expenditure is of course an inevitably of assembling any competitive team. To build a winner and not battle this is nigh-on impossible. Yet for the Pelicans to be on the cusp of doing so already, when they are still some ways short of that competitiveness, is a concern.

Where once the Pelicans floated near the top of the Western Conference with a 23-14 record, they have since freefallen down to a sub-.500 30-32 record, outside of the provisional playoff spots and even behind teams that were projected to be tanking. The fact that Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram have managed only a combined 56 games is of course the main reason why, yet this is also the risk a team takes when it builds around two injury-prone players, without the financial backing to keep piling in the reinforcements.

The financial picture is not going to improve, either, given that the maximum value extension to Zion is about to kick in. His big new deal, paired with that of Ingram, makes it immediately difficult for the Pelicans to take on much money – their young stars are already being paid like veterans. And a sub-.500 season is not one that you want to be starting the repeater tax clock on.

What makes the tax proximity an immediate problem, though, is the $30+ million annual salary of McCollum. He is taking up the Third Big Salary Slot, on a team that does not have a fourth in the chamber. And once Williamson’s new deal kicks in, that Third Big Salary goes from difficult to prohibitive.

With Williamson having missed so much time on his first contract, the Pelicans were in a bit of a bind. They did not have as much information as they needed to identify what would be the perfect complementary roster around the budding superstar who is required to even have a window, and they were able to get a quality scoring guard and an athletic defensive big for cheap at positions of need.

That said, both are still positions of need. The Pelicans will need greater athletic options at the big man spot alongside Zion to cover his shortcomings, and have also shown in this turgid stretch that their halfcourt offence lacks for potency, shooting, shot creation and someone who can both work off of Zion and pick up for him when he is out. McCollum is these things, to a point, but not to the elite level that the contending version of the Pelicans will require. And because they traded for him instead, perhaps the Pelicans missed out on getting one.

In the months hence, Donovan Mitchell became available. Having acquired McCollum, there was no real way that the Pelicans could have swung a deal for him, with the spending power gone and the small scoring guard role filled. Had they done so, their need for greater offensive dynamism, end-game closers and an added scoring punch would have been addressed. As it is, they have a very good player, who is not moving the needle.