New Orleans Pelicans: 3 reasons LeBron James should join Anthony Davis
By Jason Timpf
The New Orleans Pelicans are perhaps the least-mentioned contender for LeBron James to consider this summer, but they may be the best overall fit.
June is about to get ugly.
This severely limited Cleveland Cavaliers team — impossibly still within striking distance of the NBA Finals thanks to another heroic LeBron James playoff run — will get absolutely embarrassed by whoever comes out of the Western Conference.
This seems to be a consensus among all basketball fans, which leads us to the drama of this offseason, where LeBron will almost assuredly leave Cleveland.
Why almost assuredly? you may ask. Well, the 2018 NBA Draft Lottery was not kind to the Cavaliers. With their vaunted “Brooklyn pick” falling to the eighth position, the value of said pick has plummeted. This leaves Cleveland in the awkward position of needing to bring in another star player without the cap space or trade assets to actually pull it off.
So realistically, LeBron has no choice but to leave, unless he’s willing to keep dragging a limited roster to inevitable losses into his mid-30s. Let’s face it, he has to be sick of that rerun.
Anyway, we’ve all heard about the expected finalists. The Los Angeles Lakers, the Houston Rockets and the Philadelphia 76ers are all expected to have a legitimate chance to bring LeBron in.
Each has a strong case. The Lakers have cap space, the infatuation of Paul George and young talent. The Rockets have two All-Stars and plenty of shooting. The Sixers have perhaps the two best young stars in the league.
There is, however, one team that doesn’t seem to be getting enough attention in this regard: the New Orleans Pelicans. A look at their salary cap situation shows they’d have to shed significant salary to even be in the running, and a move for the King would certainly mean DeMarcus Cousins signing somewhere else.
However, assuming for a second that it were possible for this front office to clear the requisite cap space to make a play for LeBron James, here are three reasons he would need to give the Pelicans a look in free agency this summer.