Two weeks ago, the New Orleans Pelicans were a funky team with some very good young players, a killer new mascot, another lottery pick, a coach with the most diverse sideline wardrobe in the NBA, and an intriguing upside that seemed years away. And then, bam: They surprised everyone by trading two first-round picks, including the pick that turned out to be Nerlens Noel, in exchange for Jrue Holiday a deal with serious Kawhi LeonardGeorge Hill potential in terms of long-term "Who won?" curiousity. They followed that up by immediately throwing a monster contract at Tyreke Evans, one of the league's five best restricted free agents, at the start of a free-agency period in which there has been almost zero buzz around the other four.1
Once the Evans deal is complete, the Pellies2 will have six players locked up through 2015-16, tied with the Celtics for the largest number (excluding 2013-14 rookies) of any team in the league. Those six guys, plus draft picks and charges for empty roster spots, would take the Pelicans very close to the projected salary cap in the summers of 2014 and 2015. In other words, this six-man group could be the team: Evans, Holiday, Anthony Davis, Austin Rivers, Ryan Anderson, and Eric Gordon. To acquire that core, the Pelicans have sacrificed both future cap flexibility and a pick in next June's loaded draft, the key asset that swung the Noel-Holiday deal. Outside of Boston, which has quickly become Valhalla for any NBA front-office geek interested in a monster rebuild project, the Pelicans have had the league's most interesting offseason a series of high-risk, high-reward gambles that have divided rival executives and gone against the grain of larger trends in NBA team-building strategy.
