The Pelicans were described Thursday by my former ESPN colleague Brian Windhorst as “really aggressive on the trade market for a guard.” Portland’s CJ McCollum and Houston’s Eric Gordon are known to be available, while numerous competing teams continue to believe that Sacramento is willing to part with De’Aaron Fox despite the Kings’ stated preference, conveyed via The Athletic, to build around Tyrese Haliburton and Fox.

Source: Marc Stein/Substack

ANALYSIS: New Orleans started the season 1-13, but has since hovered around .500 basketball.

Each of these trades would be win-now moves in an effort to push the 11th-place Pelicans to the Play-In Tournament.

McCollum and Fox are both 20-plus-point-per-game scorers, while Gordon is averaging 14.3 points per game in Houston.