Brian Windhorst: The Pelicans have had some cursory discussions. From what I’ve been told, there haven’t been any offers made necessarily yet, but it makes you really not take too far of a leap to wonder… The league is certainly wondering if the Pelicans are going to make for the first time truly Zion Williamson available ahead of next week’s draft.
It’s insane both that Zion is on the market at all, and that there isn’t really a good estimate on what his value is. Whatever team winds up with him gets a player who was the undisputed first pick of his draft class and had been hailed as the future of the NBA, but also an incredibly fragile player who’s playstyle requires him to be physical.
Seems like one of the biggest gamble trades in a long time.
If you’re the Pelicans you can’t trade him for anything less than a top 3 pick or equivalent player and if you’re a team trading for him you can’t give up a top 3 pick or equivalent player. If a trade goes down one side will be fleeced.
If the Pelicans want to trade him they need to do after he has a good full season.
Given their track record with injury prone players, the Blazers should absolutely not trade for Zion. But something tells me they will.
Drafting Scoot sounds like a rebuild and moving on from Dame.
Trading that pick for Zion would make one more run with Dame a LOT more interesting. Like you said though, he’s gotta be healthy. It’s a gamble.
I wonder if a team that’s already likely making the playoffs would be willing to trade for him and only use him towards the end of the season for the playoffs. I guess there’d be chemistry issues.
I never believe anything Windhorst ever says. He’s simply not credible, never gained sources, never gained any inside into any teams, he was and always will be LeBron’s mouthpiece. Except he’s not needed for that anymore.
