featured-image

Five years later, Pelicans reaping benefits from 2013 draft-night trade

During an interview on one of ESPN’s draft preview shows Monday, Phoenix general manager Ryan McDonough – owner of Thursday’s No. 1 pick – noted that not all NBA drafts are alike. The reality is, there is often significant fluctuation in the number of can’t-miss types available at the top of draft boards each summer.

“In some years, even at No. 1, it’s kind of a stretch – it’s almost like you’re making up guys to pick (first who don’t deserve that status),” McDonough said. “In this draft we feel like all five of (the projected top prospects) are worthy.”

Five years ago, when New Orleans closely examined the 2013 draft class, its front office reached a conclusion shared by several other NBA teams, that the group of incoming draftees was particularly weak. The Pelicans took that assessment a step further than their counterparts around the league, however, opting to trade out of the draft lottery in order to acquire an established NBA veteran. A trade with Philadelphia of the No. 6 overall selection in ’13 and a ’14 first-rounder for Jrue Holiday was the result; Holiday was coming off his first All-Star appearance with the 76ers.

In hindsight, that deal marked the unofficial launch of the much-discussed “Process” for the City of Brotherly Love, while also beginning a multi-year stretch in which New Orleans frequently expended future first-round picks in order to land players who’d already shown they can contribute in the league. Over the next handful of years, Omer Asik, DeMarcus Cousins and Nikola Mirotic were acquired in similar fashion, with Cousins and Mirotic joining Holiday in making major contributions in ’17-18, as the Pelicans enjoyed their first advancement in the playoffs in a decade.

Looking back now at the top of the ’13 NBA draft, an argument can be made that it was the least productive class of the last few decades. Sure, Milwaukee found a gem in franchise player Giannis Antetokounmpo at No. 15 overall, but at the time no team was willing to risk a lottery pick to take him (he was such an obscure name that SI.com’s NBA draft results from that year still list him as “Adetokunbo”).

Among the top seven players who were picked in ’13, one of them is no longer even in the league, while only Victor Oladipo and Otto Porter have established themselves as bona fide NBA starters. Although ’13 draftees such as Oladipo, C.J. McCollum and Dennis Schroder proved to be later-blooming quality players, the first-year performance by the elite of their draft class was so poor that No. 11 pick Michael Carter-Williams won Rookie of the Year in a landslide. Less than a year later, Carter-Williams was traded by Philadelphia, and has spent the past two seasons trying to gain a foothold as a backup point guard with Chicago and Charlotte.

Instead of trying to sift through what proved to be a very erratic draft class, New Orleans obtained Holiday as the 23-year-old guard was entering his prime. Unfortunately for Holiday and his new team, he initially battled leg injuries that limited him to just 34 and 40 games during his first two seasons in the Crescent City. After two solid and mostly injury-free campaigns in ’15-16 and ’16-17, he re-signed with the Pelicans on a lucrative contract extension, then went out and proved he was worth every penny during the best season of his nine-year career. Holiday averaged a career-high 19.0 points in ’17-18, while also being selected to NBA First-Team All-Defense for the first time. He was dominant at both ends of the floor in the Pelicans’ first-round sweep of Portland, capped by a 41-point eruption in Game 4.

A half-decade later, several of the players drafted before and after the No. 6 pick New Orleans traded to Philadelphia are struggling to cement a permanent job in the NBA, including a few who will be entering a dicey market for free agents July 1. Meanwhile, the Pelicans have a foundational piece in Holiday, a prominent element of the franchise’s present and future.