The New Orleans Pelicans May Have Just Robbed The Washington Wizards In Front of Everyone

One of the worst kept secrets for this NBA offseason has been the plans for the New Orleans Pelicans to shake their roster up. Nearly everyone knew this was coming as soon as the team relieved Executive Vice President David Griffin of his duties. Griffin had his fingerprints all over a roster that has consistently underperformed.

The New Orleans Pelicans Are Going To Rebuild

With Griffin out, the roster rebuild was going to be underway. The only thing people were debating was whether or not this would be a sell-off rebuild, or a reload around superstar Zion Williamson. Essentially the team was either going to ship Zion off, or build around him.

Last week the team orchestrated a trade to double their first round NBA Draft picks for this year when they traded one of next year's picks for this year's #23 overall pick. At that point, we knew the Pels were being active on the phones, but it didn't tip us off on which way they were moving. Then today, they swung another deal that told us what the plan was.

The Pelicans Just Robbed The Wizards In Broad Daylight

The New Orleans Pelicans and Washington Wizards agreed to a trade today that caught most NBA fans, followers, and reporters off guard. The deal sends CJ McCullum and Kelly Olynyk to Washington, along with a future second round pick. The Wizards are then sending Jordan Poole, Saddiq Bey, and a 2025 second round pick to New Orleans.

That's right, the Pelicans just sent two expensive, aging players to Washington in exchange for two 26-year-old players. One with a ring, and one who almost won a Rookie of the Year award.

This Is The Kind Of Trade A Video Game Declines

If the story of this trade is ever told, there will be a lot of interesting ears. Because the Wizards explanation will be truly interesting. They are interested in bringing in 33-year-old CJ McCollum, who is in the final year of a deal that is going to pay him $30 million next season. McCollum may average around 20 points-per-game for his career, but missed a chunk of last season when a foot injury ended his year.

Before that, McCollum has run into other injury issues. He's only played over 70 games once since 2020.

Kelly Olynyk is a 34-year-old center/power forward who averages 10 points-per-game for his career, but only sees about 5 rebounds a game. He's another pretty hearty contract for his production, where he's slated to get $13.4 million for this upcoming season.

The only thing that seems to make sense for the Wizards is that both McCollum's and Olynyk's contracts are going to expire after the 2025-2026 season, which will take about $50 million off their books at that point.

The New Orleans Pelicans Now Have A Ton Of Young Talent

For the Pelicans, they're now looking at Zion as the centerpiece, that will see starting lineup combinations with Poole, Bey, Herb Jones, Trey Murphy III, Jose Alvarado, Dejounte Murray (when healthy), and Yves Missi. Not to mention they have the #7 overall pick, and that #23 pick we mentioned earlier, in this year's NBA Draft (which has been called one of the deepest in a long time).

The New Orleans Pelicans just got way better, thanks to the Washington Wizards.