New Orleans Pelicans: 5 Potential Ryan Anderson Trade Destinations

If the New Orleans Pelicans trade Ryan Anderson, here’s a look at five potential destinations and what the Pellies might get in return.

Over the last few weeks, the NBA world has been waiting to see what the New Orleans Pelicans would do with backup power forward Ryan Anderson. Reports have already emerged that the Pelicans have had preliminary trade talks with the Phoenix Suns, while ESPN’s Marc Stein provided an update that New Orleans is listening to offers, but not biting on anything just yet.

Strictly from a basketball sense, it’d make no sense why the Pelicans want to trade Anderson. As their super-sub off the bench, Anderson provides scoring, rebounding and most of all, elite perimeter shooting to help spread the floor.

Through his first 23 games of the season, Anderson is averaging 18.2 points and 6.7 rebounds in 32.4 minutes per game while shooting 44.2 percent from the floor and 37.6 percent from three-point range. He’s not much of a defender, but he’s easily one of the best bench scorer’s in the league.

However, the Anderson-Anthony Davis frontcourt pairing hasn’t worked out, since the Brow is really at his most effective when playing the 4-spot. Even if the pairing had been working, however, Anderson’s status as an unrestricted free agent this summer is what really makes his value so tricky to properly assess.

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Contenders looking to bolster their roster for a postseason run — or teams with plenty of confidence and cap space to re-sign him over the summer — should be banging down New Orleans’ door to add the valuable sharpshooter, but finding a fair deal for both parties could prove to be difficult in this instance.

On the one hand, the Pelicans don’t want to give up an asset for nothing, especially as a 7-18 team that’s in desperate need of some major roster changes. But even if Anderson is such a useful commodity, teams won’t be willing give up the farm for a player who could easily walk this summer for nothing.

New Orleans doesn’t want to overpay to keep him, especially since at age 29, this will probably be the last major contract of Anderson’s career. With the way the NBA’s salary cap is projected to rise to approximately $89 million next year, it might take quite a lucrative offer to enlist his services this summer.

With Eric Gordon becoming a free agent this summer and Tyreke Evans and the injury-prone Jrue Holiday becoming free agents in 2017, changes are coming. Omer Asik‘s bloated contract will be difficult (but probably necessary) to trade and other than Anthony Davis, no one on this roster should be off limits.

But will New Orleans opt for a full roster deconstruction or just retool to try and keep their fading playoff hopes alive?

As you can see, there are plenty of caveats to the situation, especially when it comes to negotiating an acceptable return for a team that’s already falling out of the Western Conference playoff picture. Whether the Pelicans plan on bottoming out or restructuring the roster to try and make a surge for the postseason, here are five potential Ryan Anderson trades.

NOTE: These trades are ranked in terms of fairness to both teams and how realistic it is that they’ll actually happen. It’s also important to note that since there’s a legitimate chance the Pelicans lose Anderson for nothing this summer, ANY return is better than nothing.

Honorable Mention: Atlanta Hawks (Tiago Splitter)

Next: No. 5