New Orleans Pelicans: One trade for the team if they win the NBA Draft Lottery

After a disappointing end to their season, the New Orleans Pelicans have an NBA draft lottery pick to deal with. Here’s a trade they could make if they win

The New Orleans Pelicans hit the jackpot last year, which resulted in them bringing Zion Williamson to the Big Easy. After a promising season, came a disheartening ending in the NBA playoffs, as they fell off the pace for the play-in game race in the Western Conference.

The one positive that comes from this is that they are provided with another lottery pick this year to help continue shaping this upcoming side. There’ll be plenty of options in terms of what they want to do with the pick. Here, we’re going to explore one possible route they could take with it.

This year, the probability of getting a top-pick is very low for the Pelicans. They go into Thursday’s lottery with a 6.0 percent chance of securing a top-four selection and a 1.3 percent chance of getting the first pick in the NBA draft. This draft class isn’t being talked about as a strong one at all, but there are enough options to explore that would give this team a higher ceiling than it does at the moment.

If the New Orleans Pelicans did defeat the odds and bag themselves a top pick, the play would be to trade it.

A realistic trade, depending on unrealistic odds, is Joel Embiid. The Philadelphia 76ers pairing of Embiid and Ben Simmons doesn’t seem like it’s going to be good enough to contend in the east at any time soon for the 76ers, and there’ve been rumors around one of the two getting traded for some time now.

If the 76ers were to trade one of them, you’ve got to think that this would be Embiid. Simmons showed this season that he’s taking his game to the next level, and will be the guy in Philadelphia for the foreseeable future. Embiid has looked unsettled at times and a move to a team with a lot of promise could be huge for him.

Embiid has three years and $94.7 million remaining on his contract, and this would work with Derrick Favors and E’Twaun Moore both becoming unrestricted free agents at the end of this season. However, the main point for the Pelicans to deal with in this offseason is Brandon Ingram, who will also become a free agent unless he gets that big contract that everybody is waiting on.

The Pelicans do have some combined salaries that could make such a deal for Joel Embiid work if they do somehow get a top pick. This is a young team that needs an established star if they want to become a real threat in the playoffs. Embiid would bring the interior defense that they are desperate for, elite-level rebounding which would be huge for them on both ends, as well as the ability to score consistently well.

There are always going to be injury concerns with Embiid and worries over whether he can play full games on a night-to-night basis, but he seems like an obvious choice to fill the needs that the Pelicans have if they were in a position to make a deal like this happen. Embiid would give this team a huge basis to do a complete u-turn on the defensive side of things while allowing them to reach the next level that they are desperate to reach.