Nikola Vucevic Trade Rumors: 5 Teams That Should Trade For Magic C

4. New Orleans Pelicans

The New Orleans Pelicans are desperate to add long-term talent around Anthony Davis, as their reported trade interest in Jahlil Okafor clearly shows. Okafor is younger and might have a higher ceiling in a best-case scenario, but Vucevic would be a less risky alternative.

AD doesn’t like playing the center spot, so even though Vucci Mane is hardly the defensive anchor the Pelicans need to shift the Brow to the 4 for good, he’s a serviceable center who’d take some of the pressure off the NBA’s 27th ranked offense, spreading the floor to the midrange and helping on the boards.

Solomon Hill‘s contract was a reach at the time it was signed, and his underwhelming 6.7 points and 3.7 rebounds per game on sub-40 percent shooting have hardly justified it. It’d probably cost the Pellies a future first round pick, but don’t forget this is a team that’s trying to assemble a championship roster in the near future; picks in the next few years may not be as valuable to them.

Hill is hardly an attractive return, but he’d provide the Magic with another wing to prepare for Jeff Green‘s free agency departure. The first-rounder would be the real prize, even though it’d have to be in a couple of years to convince New Orleans to consider offering one at all.

However, as much as Vucevic would help one of the league’s worst offenses, giving up a rotation player and a future first might be too large of an asking price for the Pelicans. For a rebuilding team like the Magic, that first-rounder would be far more useful if it were a 2017 or 2018 first-rounder, which NOLA would be hard-pressed to surrender as a current lottery team.