The Pelicans Need to Trade Lonzo Ball

The New Orleans Pelicans need to trade Lonzo Ball. It would benefit both parties at this point. After hiring Stan Van Gundy, Lonzo’s role on offense became determined. Van Gundy expressed how highly he thought of Lonzo as an overall young talent prior to being hired, seeing Lonzo as a great and willing passer, an improving shooter, and an exceptional defender. What Van Gundy didn’t like, however, is Lonzo’s inability to run a half-court offense and shoot off the dribble. He saw Lonzo as a role player who excelled in transition and operated as a spot-up shooter on set plays. That there is why Lonzo has seemed to regress thus far this season.

Through 12 games, Lonzo is averaging career lows in rebounds, assists, and 3-point percentage. Lonzo’s versatility as a do-it-all PG is what made him valuable, along with his much-improved outside shot. All that has gone away under Van Gundy. He’s become a negative on offense and a lot less effective on defense. The way Lonzo is now being used has him as the Pelicans’ least effective rotational player. His offensive rating is 96, the lowest for any Pelicans players with over 150 minutes played. His defensive rating (112) pits him in the middle of the Pelicans’ 9-man rotation. Van Gundy is using Lonzo exactly like he said he would: he’d be the leader of the offense in transition and a spot-up role player in half-court sets. Unfortunately, the Pelicans have one of the league’s slowest paces (24th overall), meaning Lonzo being the lead guard in transition doesn’t mean much.

With Van Gundy under a 4-year deal and the Pelicans expecting to improve from last season, they don’t have the leeway of letting Lonzo figure things out. He’s due for a contract extension and will likely ask for more than what the Pelicans believe he’s worth. He doesn’t quite fit into Van Gundy’s system and was already a questionable fit next to Brandon Ingram and Zion Williamson. If he had maintained his 37.5% outside shooting, the Pelicans may have a better record than 5-10 and we wouldn’t be here thinking of how they could move on from Lonzo. But that’s not the case, he’s shooting 29.1% from three on a career-leading 12.0 attempts per game.

The New Orleans Pelicans need to move on from Lonzo and let him flourish elsewhere, or else we’ll see a wasted year for this young core of players.