Pelicans Trading Away Micah Peavy Is More Than Just a Small Loss

The New Orleans Pelicans facilitated a trade earlier this week that sent former No. 14 overall pick Jordan Hawkins to the Memphis Grizzlies. In return, the Pelicans received guard AJ Johnson and forward Taj Gibson, whom the team waived a day later.

Trading away former first-round picks isn’t always ideal, but another major loss in the transaction is also losing second-year forward Micah Peavy.

Micah Peavy now becomes a Pelicans what-if after trade

Peavy was definitely the less hyped of the team’s rookie class last season, which included All-NBA Rookie Second Team selections Jeremiah Fears and Derik Queen. Still, the 6-foot-7 forward was beginning to turn the corner towards the end of last year.

Peavy appeared in 61 games for New Orleans, averaging 4.3 points, 1.9 rebounds, and one assist per game. While those numbers don’t jump off the screen, he was solid defensively in stretches, which is why New Orleans drafted him in the second round.

The former Georgetown Hoya averaged 1.5 steals per game during the month of April, which saw Peavy get three of his four starts last year. According to Databallr, the Pelicans' defensive rating was +1.8 better when Peavy played his 743 minutes. Bringing in new head coach Jamahl Mosley this offseason was expected to be a value-add for a young player like Peavy, but now Mosley will have one fewer perimeter defender on his team.

That puts even more pressure on veteran forward Herb Jones to continue to guard the opposing team’s best player every night. Jones has been marred by injury the last couple of seasons, missing 88 games over the past two years.

Peavy would fit perfectly with the Pelicans' timeline of a young, defensive-minded forward still on their rookie deal who could complement Jones and give him a spell defensively over the course of a year. Jones’ name came up in various trade talk speculations last season, and Peavy could have been a likely candidate to fill a Jones-type role on the team.

New Orleans had to make an additional roster move to sign Bennedict Mathurin, who recently agreed to a 2-year, $16 million contract. With Mathurin, the Pelicans roster was at 16 players, so they needed to offload Hawkins and another player to get to the league-mandated 15 players. How New Orleans arrived here is a bit head-scratching, though.

The team picked up his team option for this season, even though there were signs he wasn’t fitting into the team's structure. His inconsistent shooting and defensive lapses led to him being benched midseason. The Pelicans couldn’t unload him at the deadline, so he remained on the roster.

Hawkins was tied to conversations earlier in the summer with the Grizzlies, and now a deal is official, but surrendering a rotational piece in Peavy and a second-round pick is a tough pill to swallow for a player they already released in Gibson and a player who may not remain here past training camp in AJ Johnson. For Peavy, he gets an opportunity on a rebuilding Grizzlies team to showcase his defensive skill set while also trying to expand his offensive repertoire.

One of the major knocks on him is his outside shooting ability. Peavy only shot 25% from beyond the three-point line during his rookie season. He seemed to make positive strides during his stint in Summer League this offseason, shooting about 50% from downtown and averaging 12.5 points per game.

Now, New Orleans must find some consistency defensively, and losing one of their best perimeter defenders certainly won’t help. Mosley and his staff will need to be creative to build chemistry and communication on that end, or it will no doubt be another long season in New Orleans.

Second-round picks are rare to develop in this league consistently. We won’t know the ceiling Peavy could have had with the Pelicans, but they already are behind on their rebuild by giving away a solid piece off the bench.

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