NO RUSH: Why New Orleans Pelicans Should REFUSE to Move Trey Murphy III This Season

NO RUSH: Why New Orleans Pelicans Should REFUSE to Move Trey Murphy III This Season

Well, I just recorded this episode and then realized uh partway through that my microphone was muted. Uh so, let’s do that again while my microphone is actually on and I’m talking to you. It’s the Monday or Tuesday episode of the Locked on Pelicans podcast. Let’s get into it. You are Locked On Pelicans, your daily New Orleans Pelicans podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. Welcome in to another edition of the Locked On Pelicans Podcast. The daily podcast covering your favorite team, the New Orleans Pelicans. Part of the Lock Podcast Network, your team every day. and now the number one sports podcast network in the nation. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Join over 12,000 Pelicans fans over on YouTube as well. And you can also watch us on the GF Coast Sports and Entertainment Network. You’re already getting your Pelicans games over there. So come hang out with us and and watch have some fun with us over on there as well. I’m your host for today, Pelicans Insider, credentialed member of the media, Dylan Sanders. You can find me over on Twitter, Dilly Sanders, and I’m also the publisher of Pelicans Roundtable, a fun community of basketball fans. Come talk about anything. Come hang out with me over on Pelicans Roundtable. Today, we’re going to be talking about trade rumors. They’re already picking up. That’s because we’re we’re we’re approaching a crucial time of the year. Let’s get into, you know, I we’re going to be talking about the three big names. Trey Murphy, Herb Jones, Zion Williamson, and kind of their trade outlooks for this season. Then we’re going to preview the uh t the Tuesday’s Timberwolves game happening tonight. Uh the first of two Timberwolves games this week. And then we’re going to close out the show by talking about a change to the Pelican schedule that they’re not playing in the NBA Cup. Who are they playing during that week? And what will not being in the NBA Cup tournament kind of mean for them? Why I think it’s a good thing. Today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. That’s $5. And if your bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. Head to fandal.com to get started. All right, I said in the cold open, but I actually just recorded this show and then realized my mic is on. So, I’m going to be checking to make sure my mic’s recording every five minutes. it is right now. So, that’s a good thing. We’re we’re moving in the right direction. Let’s start today’s episode by talking about trade rumors because I think right now the trade rumors are starting to pick up. Why I think that why that I know why it is. It’s because we’re December starting. We’re the beginning of December, first couple of days of December. And around the middle of this month is whenever players start to become that sign contracts this offseason start to become eligible for trades. So you’re going to start seeing a little bit more movement of uh pieces where teams maybe not performing as well as they were start to sell off pieces to contending teams or you know teams that are contending try and buy players that can help them continue to make a push into the playoffs. And that second part is where I figure the Pelicans are going to be in more so this season. I don’t know if they’re going to be rushing to sell off these players, but they have a couple of players that it’s kind of like if teams call, they’re going to get you a return and you have to listen. I want to start the conversation with Trey Murphy. I think most people would probably start with Zion Williamson because he’s like the biggest name, but I do not think he has the most trade value on the New Orleans Pelicans. That uh honor would go to Trey Murphy. Let’s take a look at how Trey Murphy is doing to start the season. It is uh you through 19 games, he’s kind of dealing with a right elbow soreness strain right now. We’re going to talk a little bit about the injury part of it coming up next. Uh seeing if he’s going to play at all this week. Who knows? But when he is playing 19.7 points per game, 6.2 rebounds, three assists on uh 46, 37, and 93 shooting splits. Uh not the exact start to the season that I think a lot of people wanted from Trey Murphy. He’s had big games. He’s had games he scored 35 41 uh setting a new career high or tying a new career high. He can score at will and he can kind of be the superstar player and I think that’s why the Pelicans maybe should keep on to him, keep a hold of him at least for right now. There’s no reason to trade him anytime soon. They got him on a super teamfriendly deal. He’s making four over the next four years, $112 million. That is a very fair price to play to pay for someone who I think can still be the face of this the lead of this team on winning basketball. And maybe that’s exactly why you’re seeing him not have the year that most people wanted to see him have because he is expanding his game. He’s trying to become more of a playmaker, more of a distributor. He’s rebounding better this year. So, I think that has been some of the drop off of the really hot start or or the hot stretches he had last year when he was healthy, but I think he’s still proving that he can be that next level of player. And before that happens, it would be brutal to trade him to a contender a contender for so still getting a good value for him because on a winning team, I think he is a perfect piece to add. Uh because at his worst, he is a fantastic 3 and D wing. Uh he he can catch and shoot with the best of them. He no one is doubting his shooting abilities. No one’s doubting his scoring abilities. But it would be brutal to trade him as a high-end 3 and D wing whenever there is so much more to unlock. I still think that there’s a good chance that he becomes a long-term piece for this team. He’s still only 25, a little bit older than your Jeremiah fears or Derek Queens, but I think still definitely young enough to go through the ride with Steam to contend compete in a couple of years and still be good. So, I would not be in a rush to move Trey Murphy at all. On the other hand, I want to start this off by saying it is hard and I I you know, I don’t really root for players to get traded, especially if they don’t want to. It is a brutal, brutal thing, but I think it’s part of the business. And I say that saying if the Pelicans get a call for Herb Jones and it is a good value right now I am on the side of I think they should listen because I think Herb Jones’s best ability it it and honestly for him I think he’ll get the most out of his time in the NBA and teams will get the most out of him as a complimentary piece to winning basketball. He’s a great defender. He’s great in the locker room. uh and he can he has streaks of shooting well and that’s all a team really needs. Trey Murphy I think is a little bit harder of a person to play just because of how much he does by getting a couple of late first round picks for contending teams. T Herb Jones on the other hand you have guys like Micah Peavey on the come up. Bryce McGowens looks like a good young piece. He’s he’s good been a good 3 and D player. You’re starting to see players already take over uh while Herb Jones is out, play that role a little bit. You’re going to have like minutes to spare with Jordan P, Dejante Murray, and now you might trade them. We’re not going to talk about them too much in this segment. I think that it would be a little bit smarter right now to listen to trade offers for Herb Jones. And then the Zion Williamson sized elephant in the room. I don’t think you can trade him this year. Again, already you can’t play him in backtobacks. uh right now he already missed a lot of time uh earlier in the year. He hasn’t looked the same level of dominant when he is on the court. I don’t think that there is a reason to trade him in the slightest right now. So see if he can come back and and put up some more consistent minutes throughout the year. play play some more and and kind of return build up that trade value because right now the trade value is as low as it’s been in a while. I don’t think you’re going to get anything good in the middle of a season for him. So wait till the off season, see if you can put together a a you know a better second half of the season than he has first half so far. Maybe get a little bit of that trade value back and then make the decision when you have more time to sit on it than you do trying to brush up before the trade deadline. So those that’s how we feel on the three main trade guys that you’re going to hear I think the most this season. Dejante Murray is someone who I think could get traded depending on whenever he comes back and gets healthy. All right, when we come back I want to take a look at this Minnesota Timberwolves game, the first of two and we’re going to start off the conversation by talking about the injury report because it looks a little bit better than it did against the the Lakers but not that much better. All right, we’ll hit that when we come right back. This episode is brought to you by FanDuel. 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Right now, new FanDuel is giving new customers $300 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. So, head to fanduel.com to sign up and play your game with FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. And thank you for making Lock on Pelicans your first listen today and every day. We are here Monday through Friday, the number one Pelicans podcast covering everything you want to know about this Pelicans team. We are part of the Lockone Podcast Network, your team every day and now the number one sports podcast network in the nation. Everydayers, this is your call. I want to hear everyone that’s in the Every Dare Club. Drop a comment. Let me know you’re here. Let me know you’re listening. And if you’re not part of the Every Dare Club, what are you doing? Come on, man. Listen to a couple of episodes this week. See how it feels. The the the air is nice over on the Everyday Club. I’m hanging out. Come hang out. All right, let’s get into this game preview. They’re going against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Tuesday night. Tonight, at the time that you’re hearing this, I I think we have to start the conversation with the injury report. by uh you know I already recorded so I don’t have it in front of me. While I get that let’s talk they do play them twice at home this week. There’s a you know an off day in between but they play them on Tuesday and on Thursday before they go on the road to play the Brooklyn Nets at the end of the week. All right, let’s take a look at the how the injury report looks right now. Two players questionable. Trey Murphy with that right elbow strain. I think right now it would be foolish to expect him to play through anything. Uh just because the team’s losing, there’s not a lot to play for right now uh for him individually. It’s on his shooting elbow. I would not expect to see the team rush him back, especially given how they have handled injuries this season. They’re not ones to really push it uh very far. Jordan Hawkins, he’s been out with an illness. He’s been upgraded to questionable before this game. It’s kind of similar to what we saw with Eve Mei, uh, who’s who dealt with an in illness for, you know, missed a couple games. Hawkins has been out for two games, I believe. See if he comes back. He could be iffy. Uh, you know, it could go either way with Hawkins in my opinion. And while we’re talking about Jordan Hawkins, I want to give him a little bit of a shout out. I think he’s playing much better basketball under James Bgo. Uh it might not really show up on uh the score sheets as much, but I like his fit in the James Bgo offense. And you know, actually it does. He’s had a couple of games in double digit scoring. Uh and that last game before he he missed it found like he really unlocked something. It was that loss against the Memphis Grizzlies. He was four from four of eight from three. Kind of provided the team some much needed spacing. Jordan Hawkins is shooting well. You’re finally getting what you need out of him, which is more spacing. The team needs people who can shoot. So, you know, losing him, even if he didn’t have the best start to the year, hurts in terms of floor spacing at the minimum. And then everyone else, uh, the usual suspects on the injury report like, uh, Herb Jones, Jordan P, uh, Dejonte Murray, all them still out. Really want to know what’s going on with Herb Jones and Jordan Pool and Carla Makovich because these are all players who’ve been out for weeks, way longer than expected. Uh, you know, some clarity would be great on those players. All right, let’s talk about we we’ve talked about who they’re missing. Let’s talk about who is going to play and what we’re going to see on the court against the Minnesota Timberwolves. The number one convers I think everyone’s watching with this Pelican team right now because that’s it was like the first thing that James Burggo talked about that you kind of start to see click and that’s the pace of the game. Pelicans got really really fast against the Bulls and against the Grizzlies. And then ever since then, you kind of start to see the pace tick down. And what that tells me because if you look at who they’re playing, the pace kind of matches who they’re playing. The Pelicans are not doing a good job of controlling the speed of the game. I think they’re good at playing with pace. We’ve talked a lot about like Derrick Queen doing a little bit better when he can slow things down and uh kind of control what he does, but he doesn’t really get that opportunity over the past couple of weeks. And there’s no one else on the Pelicans that has done a good job of controlling the speed of game. You play against Luca Donuch, the game goes at whatever speed Luca Don Donuch wants it to play at. And I I think you see the Menaceo Timberwolves kind of do the same thing. their kind of similar paced to the Los Angeles Lakers. I think that could be a good thing for the Pelicans because you already saw them kind of figure out what the Pel the Lakers were doing and kind of match them in terms of pace and efficiency after that first quarter. They settled in. Maybe you can ride that wave, continue playing at the same speed that you were in that Lakers game and kind of do things. But especially if Trey Murphy’s not playing, it’s good to have Zion Williamson back cuz it’s not a backto-back. So Zion is actually going to play. Anthony Edward, you have to start every conversation about the Minnesota Timber with Anthony Edwards. He’s one of the most fun players to play and I think he is uh scientifically designed to destroy the Pelicans right now. Uh he is averaging 29 points per game, just under 29 points per game on 49, 40, and 82 splits. The Pelicans cannot guard shooting guards. No matter who they are, they can’t guard Grayson Allen, Moses Moody. These are all players that you don’t expect to see kill you. They, you know, they have good uh they have, you know, they can shoot, but they don’t do it on a night in night out basis. They have career nights against the Pelicans. You look at Anthony Edwards, who’s someone who has sh made at least five threes in his last uh four of the last five games. In that last game, he didn’t. He’s still shot four of six from three. He has not scored under 30 points in a week. He’s had two games over 40. This is a chance where I think the Pelicans get demolished because Anthony Edwards is just really good at basketball. And whenever Anthony Edwards isn’t controlling things, it’s uh Julius Reynolds. So, if you’re if you’re a Pelicans fan, you kind of know Julius Randle’s uh whole thing. He’s averaging 23, 7 and a half, and six uh this season on solid shooting was 50, 35, and 82, 81. Uh you know, you he kind of does a little bit of everything. He’s a very solid player. And then I think the next person outside of Anthony Edwards who’s going to dictate this matchup is Rudy Goar in the center. You kind of saw the Pelicans did not have an answer uh on either side of the court for Zack Edy. The good thing is I don’t think that Rudigar is as dominant on the offensive side of the ball as Zack Edy was in that game. But on the defensive side of the ball, he’s big, he’s strong, and that’s when the Pelicans uh kind of fall apart. Especially with like Murphy out, there’s no shooting. you’re going to have to rely on Jeremiah Fears, Zion Williamson, uh, to attack and you kind of have seen them be less efficient than you would hope for uh, a lot of times this season. I was checking to make sure I was recording again. I’m I’m scarred for life now. So, that’s that’s really what it’s going to come down to is those three players. Rudy Gobar at the Evers, Julius Randall. If a Pelicans player that, you know, you want to see cook in this game, it’s it’s got to be Zion. These are star a star-studded team with star players, but they are susceptible to L. They’re 12 and eight on the season. They’re not, you know, you you can beat them. So, I’d love to see, you know, after the frustration of not having having him play in that last game to come out and dominate at home against the Minnesota Timberwolves should be a Zion game. Just kind of let him cook and and get uh Rudy Goar in foul trouble. Get him out of the game. I think that he when matched up with Julius Randle, I think Zion has the athletic advantage there. So, it’s all going to be about how they answer Rudy Gobear. I think it’s going to be Zion that has to do it. All right. When we come back, I’m going to talk about a recent change to the Pelicans schedule and really what it means for them moving forward and kind of have a conversation about what they’re playing for this season. Uh because it’s not the NBA Cup. We’ll talk about that coming up next. This episode is brought to you by Prize Picks. The holiday season is one of the best time for sports. You got bowl games coming up in college football. Uh the college ball playoff. You got big basketball matchups, both NBA and college, playoff pushes in the NFL. You got hockey. It’s all happening at once. And while we’re making choices every day, I I I chose to wear this David Lynch hat. chose, I guess, to mute my microphone for the last uh recording of this episode. Price Pix is the best place to make choices. Coincidentally, when you make the right call, you get rewarded. Price Pix is the easiest way to get in on Daily Fantasy. Just pick more or less on at least two player projections. 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I want to talk about the Pel a change the Pelicans made to their schedule and kind of why they had to do that and what they can do with some extra time off they have now. All right. A couple I talked uh the Pelicans I talked about a 10day rest uh that they had. That was wrong. That’s my bad. I I’ll own it here. Uh the Portland those two games are waited to see who they got pitted up against uh while the NBA Cup happens. It’s not going to be 10 days of rest, but there is going to be extra rest involved. They’re going to play the Portland Trailblazers on December 11th, and they’re going to play the Chicago Bulls on December 14th. Also, in this uh little release, got to announce that next week’s Spurs game uh on Monday. It was originally going to be at 8:30. It was going to be a Peacock game. Not to shock anybody, NBA decided not to put the Pelicans on the national stage. Uh right now that game is no longer going to be nationally televised, no longer going to be on Peacock and that uh that tip off time has been moved up from 8:30 to 7:00 p.m. Central. But let’s talk about those first two games. And I think that it could be coming at a crucial time that the Pelicans did not end up in the NBA cup because I mean while I I’m sure the players would love to compete for that $500,000 around $500,000 that winning each player on the winning team gets for the future of this team. I think it’s best that they don’t play in the NBA company because you get a little bit more time off between the December 8th to December 10th, uh, I mean 18th, that’s a 10-day break. They just have two games. December 11th against the Blazers and 15th at the Bulls. Like we just talked about, this has been a very busy busy season. They’ve played 21 games so far. It’s among the most in the NBA. They’ve had a couple of weekends in a row with backtobacks. That kind of impacts rest schedules. That impacts practice schedules. So now, because you’re not in the cup, you get a little bit more rest that week. Players are going to get to sit back and relax while they are, you know, not playing. And these guys who are kind of banged up right now, maybe playing through a little bit, can kind of get back to full health. the guys who aren’t playing right now, maybe that that extra time off will be enough to get them back on the court. And while it might seem foolish to talk about how much practice the team has right now, they’re three and 18. The season feels kind of lost, there’s no reason the Pelicans should not be trying to win every single game that they have this this year. I think the first reason is kind of obvious. they don’t have their first round pick. So, there’s no benefit to losing games. You know, sometimes with a tanking team, you’re at least, you know, we’re losing. At least we’re going to get better odds of that first round pick. You do not want the Atlanta Hawks to get a, you know, not a free pass because they missed out on Derek Queen, who looks great in his own right. It’s a conversation we’ve had a billion times. We’re going to talk about a lot more, I’m sure, but Derrick Queen looks good in his own right. You don’t you don’t want to have now like a Darren Peterson that you gave up to the Atlanta Hawks looming over either Queen’s career or uh you know the Pelicans franchise in general as they you know kind of rebuild and figure out what their next steps are. don’t want to give them any free passes and you want to win as many games as possible because you want to keep a a solid culture or build a let’s be honest build a solid culture from what you have now. It’s been a little bit more lack of dasical over the past couple of years. It’s kind of why you maybe seeing guys sit out more but you know you see a little bit more fight in like Derek Queen and Jeremiah Fierce. So you you want the product on the court to be to look as good. You want the team to stay competitive. And I think whenever they’re not resting over those couple of days, they’re going to have a much better chance to sit back, see what they have in this James Bgo offense, start to learn things more, build chemistry within it. They haven’t had just haven’t had much chance to look uh you know, really look at things and practice things because they’ve been playing so much this season. And then when they’re not playing, they’re traveling. Uh, and so I’m really looking forward to seeing how they do and how they respond to having a little bit more time off not being in the NBA Cup. All right, thank you for checking out today’s episode. Uh, I have been your host, Dylan Sanders. You can find me every day over here until Jake comes back uh, in a couple of weeks from his honeymoon. Thank you for making this your first listen every day. uh your first listen every day every day club shout out. For your second listen today, check out Josh Lloyd over the fantasy electrical fantasy basketball. He’s making me a much better fantasy basketball player. It’s my first year playing and because of his advice, I’m sitting at five and one. Uh and oh, Kawhi Leonard, uh player locked in a 33-point game against him. That’s not important. But Josh’s helping me win my fantasy basketball league. He can help you do the same. See y’all on tomorrow.

Trade winds intensify in New Orleans as the Pelicans weigh the futures of Trey Murphy, Herb Jones, and Zion Williamson ahead of a crucial window. With contending teams likely to call, the debate rages: does Trey Murphy’s versatile scoring and team-friendly contract make him untouchable, and should Herb Jones’ defensive value prompt the front office to listen to potential offers? Meanwhile, Zion Williamson’s fluctuating form and limited back-to-back play raise questions about his timing as a trade asset.

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