New Orleans Pelicans guard Jrue Holiday will be a free agent this summer, and, relatively recently, it looked like the front office had to figure out whether to trade him before Thursday’s 3 p.m. ET deadline. Now that the Pelicans have DeMarcus Cousins, though, it appears that is no longer under consideration, via ESPN’s Justin Verrier:
In case it needs to be said: Sources say a Jrue Holiday trade before Thursday's deadline is highly doubtful. Pelicans have their big three.
— Justin Verrier (@JustinVerrier) February 21, 2017
The concern was that, with New Orleans failing to build a contender around Anthony Davis, Holiday could choose to sign somewhere that would give him a better chance of winning. This would obviously be a huge setback for the Pelicans, who need Davis and Holiday on the court to be competitive. With Cousins on board, Holiday has much more incentive to stay, as long as the front office is willing to offer a significant raise.
At Cousins’ introductory press conference Wednesday, the center and general manager Dell Demps brought up Holiday’s name unprompted. Cousins, Davis and Holiday are clearly the core, and everybody around the soon-to-be free agent will be trying to make him feel wanted. Davis already has said he’s been trying to persuade the guard to stay, and that job just got a whole lot easier.
