At his end-of-season press conference, Pelicans executive vice president of basketball operations Joe Dumars told reporters his team has “no intentions” of trading Williamson. And maybe Dumars really meant that, but it’s worth noting that the club would gain nothing by publicly divulging an interest in dealing the 2019 draft’s top overall pick.
Not to mention, New Orleans can only run back the same group for so long, right? Granted, the Pels have spent a ton of time waiting for Williamson to be healthy and consistently available, but he was (relatively speaking) both of those things this season, and it didn’t matter. New Orleans was objectively bad—and not purposely bad, since its previously traded first-round pick took tanking off the table.
This might be the perfect offseason, then, for the Pels to just wash their hands of this situation and move on. Williamson’s trade value isn’t peaking or anything, but it shouldn’t be totally tanked, either. When he’s healthy, he’s still a lock for 20-plus points on roughly 60 percent shooting; how many other players can claim that?
He remains one of the league’s most dynamic finishers. He has flashed some real playmaking prowess when given the opportunity. He could still be the right co-star for someone. He just can’t be this franchise’s feature player and doesn’t have a leading actor around him in New Orleans. Trapped teams with scoring problems and rebuilders probing for cheap(ish) building blocks might both want a shot at cracking Williamson’s developmental code.
