re: Trade Possibilities?

I think some of you would be happy
just to swap
the entire roster for another team and just slap the Pelicans brand on it.

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Now with the way Val is playing this season

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Val needs to be kept at this rate. He's taking enough 3s and value wise he'll be more affordable allowing you to keep other pieces. He and Zion have a pretty good synergy going on.

Bottom line, is Ingram is not worth what he'll want to get paid.

He's for sure not a No. 1 and probably not a No. 2.

So you either hold him and see if it works with Zion or you trade him now to maximize return. If we didn't already have Trey, I'd say keep him and see if it works. But Trey needs 30+ minutes a night. I'm moving him if it's me.

I don’t disagree with any of your points here but I would say a big factor in trading Ingram which you don’t mention is Trey Murphy. The potential and development of Trey is a reason why many people are ok in trading Ingram. You’re right as of now Zion and BI are the only creators but to be fair you don’t know if others like Trey Murphy are because they have never been given that responsibility. And honestly if you just look at today’s NBA and fit with Zion- Trey just maximizes that but again you can’t realize the full potential of Trey until you trade BI.

Personally me along with others think that Trey can reach those heights not just as a leader but also potentially as a player. Even the few minutes he played the night before- he looked stronger, was dribbling the ball up more and even adding things to his bag.

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Ingram has been a very consistent 25, 5 and 5

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23ppg, not 25ppg.

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He’s our only other real “creator” besides Zion that creates an advantage

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CJ since he got here has roughly the same Assist %, a lower turnover rate, and lower usage rate. Meaning, if we traded BI and CJ got a small uptick in usage, he'd have at least the same assist rate and likely a higher assist rate than BI does now.

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And it’s not about if Zion goes down for the season. It’s about what happens when Zion is on the bench? What happens when Zion misses 20 games?

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If BI is as good as advertised, we should get a return of 1-2 solid players for him. If our role players 3-13 are as good as we think, if it's just Zion and not 4 dudes out, we should be able to easily not blow the season those 20 games. If we go 6-14 in those 20 games, then it doesn't matter as the team clearly isn't good enough with or without Zion.

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When we started bottoming out last season, it was because we didn’t have Zion or BI. And when we started winning at years end, it was largely because of BI. Zion WILL miss games. It would be a terrible idea to ensure those games were without either by trading BI.

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The facts are we win more than we lose with Zion and no BI, we lose more than we win with BI and no Zion, and while a fairly small sample size, the best this team has ever been in the past 5 years was with Zion and no BI for the most part.

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And I’m not saying it’s impossible to improve by trading Bi. Shoot, him for KD would have been great. But I am saying I don’t see it happening.

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Yea, I do agree, it probably won't happen, at least not on the timeline I'd hope.

A little more context on CJ vs BI...and my point isn't that CJ is better but mainly, the difference between CJ and BI is honestly much smaller than people give credit for, and it's at best a small gap. Like I mentioned above, if someone disagrees, show me the data that shows the big gulf.

Per 100 possessions to normalize for minutes comparing both players the past 3 seasons since CJ got here:

CJ - 30.3ppg, 8.0 apg, 27.0 usage rate
BI - 33.8ppg, 8.1 apg, 29.8 usage rate


So if you give CJ just the BI level of usage, his scoring goes up somewhere to near BI, his assist rate is already essentially equal to BI being in the lesser role. So when it comes to scoring and facilitating, someone explain where BI is THAT much better than CJ...

Then factor in that the type of game they play, BI doesn't really fit the scheme since he is ball dominant and basically does all his work in iso. Whereas, CJ can work within the offense, is better off ball than BI, and will knock down open 3s at an elite rate and most importantly, is willing to simply take open 3s.


1 other point, we know CJ had the injury on his hand almost all of last season, and yet his scoring efficiency is still only slightly behind BI comparing the 2 since CJ got here. If he was healthy or just did like BI would do, sat out when not 100%, then I think it's fair to say his scoring efficiency would be at least equal to BI.

This thread makes me sad.

BI just needs to cut back on the middies and shoot more threes. This board cracks me up.

ETA: HUGE game tonight. Where is the Kings thread???

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BI just needs to cut back on the middies and shoot more threes.

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So all he needs to do is the thing he is unwilling to do and you're 100% not concerned that he'll start doing the thing he's unwilling to do?

The team is on record publicly stating BI needs to shoot more 3s, they've discussed that with BI, and BI knows that...and how's that working?

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This board cracks me up.

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I don't know, thinking BI is going to cut back on middies and start shooting more 3s any day now is pretty funny too