After shopping the No. 4 pick, acquired from the Los Angeles Lakers in a reported trade agreement for Anthony Davis that cannot be completed until July 6 at the earliest, the New Orleans Pelicans found a taker shortly before Thursday's NBA draft.
The Atlanta Hawks moved up from No. 8 to No. 4 while hanging on to their other lottery pick (Cam Reddish, 10th overall), instead giving the Pelicans a pair of later picks and taking back the contract of forward Solomon Hill in exchange for going up four spots.
The deal
Hawks get: 2019 No. 4 pick (De'Andre Hunter), 2019 No. 57 pick* (Jordan Bone), Solomon Hill, future second-rounder
Pelicans get: 2019 No. 8 pick (Jaxson Hayes), 2019 No. 17 pick (Nickeil Alexander-Walker), 2019 No. 35 pick (Marcos Louzada Silva), 2020 first-round pick (via CLE)
*Headed to Detroit Pistons in separate deal
Get more trade grades for every deal here
Atlanta Hawks: D
As has been shown repeatedly in the NFL draft, teams typically pay a premium to move up in the NBA draft in terms of the value I've found those picks provide historically above and beyond their salary. Even by those standards, though, this looks like a huge overpay by the Hawks.
Before even counting the value of Hill's contract or the future second-round picks involved, Atlanta gave up a 45 percent premium, by my chart, based only on this year's picks involved. (The Hawks also got the 57th pick, which has a value of just 10 points.)
That puts this in the ballpark of the 2014 trade in which the Chicago Bulls gave up the 16th and 19th picks (Jusuf Nurkic and Gary Harris) along with taking back the salary of Anthony Randolph (later dumped with a second-round pick) to get the 11th pick (Doug McDermott) from the Denver Nuggets. That one was a 42 percent overpay by my chart in terms of current draft picks.
It's particularly surprising Atlanta would give up so much given the conventional wisdom that the fourth through eighth prospects in this year's draft are all in the same tier. The Hawks clearly believe Virginia forward De'Andre Hunter belongs in an entirely different tier than the rest.
In fairness to Atlanta GM Travis Schlenk, if he's right about Hunter, the value may not matter as much in hindsight. The Hawks already have an impressive young core headlined by guards Trae Young and Kevin Huerter and forward John Collins. Hunter would fit neatly alongside that group as a 3-and-D player capable of taking the hardest defensive assignments on the wing, and Atlanta still has the 10th pick to add another top prospect.
The Hawks also don't have to look far for an example of a successful trade up, as the Dallas Mavericks would obviously repeat last year's draft-day trade with Atlanta to get No. 3 pick Luka Doncic for the fifth pick (Young) and this year's 10th pick. Still, history tends to suggest that teams that overpay for a particular prospect often regret it, as the Bulls surely did with McDermott. There's so much uncertainty about any individual draft pick outside the very best prospects that accumulating more of them is generally the way to go.
New Orleans Pelicans: A
Trading down always looked like the most favorable option for the Pelicans, who never appeared enamored of their options at No. 4. They also weren't likely to find a trade for the veteran star they coveted to accelerate their timetable for competing with a core of presumptive top overall pick Zion Williamson and the young starters acquired from the Lakers in the Davis deal.
Given how much the ranking of prospects outside the top three in this year's draft tends to vary from team to team, going down four spots may not yield a markedly worse prospect for New Orleans. And now the Pelicans have three of the top 39 picks -- No. 17 and No. 35 from this trade plus their own second-round pick at 39.
While New Orleans may not keep all five picks, and probably wouldn't add all five players to the roster no matter what, moving Hill helps relieve something of a logjam on the roster after dealing Davis for six players and picks. It also gives the Pelicans max-level cap space this summer, and though New Orleans isn't realistically a contender for the top players on the market, perhaps executive vice president of basketball operations David Griffin thinks the veteran addition he sought in trade is more likely to come through free agency instead.
Whether that materializes or not, this looks like another winning deal for the Pelicans. Based on the latest version of my trade value chart for draft picks, the drop from No. 4 (2440) to No. 8 (1970) is a difference of 470 points of value. That's slightly more than the value of the 35th pick (370 points), before we even consider the 17th pick (1220 points), dumping Hill's contract and the heavily protected 2020 first-round pick from Cleveland.
As for the last element: The Cavaliers sent that pick, top-10 protected in both 2019 and 2020, to the Hawks in their 2017 trade for Kyle Korver. It's unlikely Cleveland will risk letting that convey next year, meaning New Orleans is really getting second-round picks from the Cavaliers in 2021 and 2022 to round out this deal.
At this point, you need a spreadsheet to keep track of all the draft picks the Pelicans have amassed in the past five days. Given the value of trading down and taking multiple shots, that's much to Griffin's credit.