The Pelicans traded Jordan Hawkins to the Grizzlies, and the interesting part of the Jordan Hawkins trade is not the headline name. It is who paid the toll. New Orleans sent Hawkins, Micah Peavy, a future second-round pick and a future second-round pick swap to Memphis for AJ Johnson and Taj Gibson, according to the reporting that broke this morning. Four players, two pick assets, one direction of travel on the sweetener.
Read that ledger twice. The team giving up the former lottery pick is also the team throwing in the draft capital.
Why did the Pelicans trade Jordan Hawkins?
When a club attaches picks to a young player it drafted in the lottery, it is telling you something it will never say at the podium: the fit ran out of runway. Hawkins came into the league as a specialist, a movement shooter who needed volume, screens and a rotation built to hunt him catch-and-shoot looks. New Orleans has spent three seasons trying to make that arrangement pay. This deal is the paperwork on the decision to stop trying.
checked the almanac: hawkins won a national title at uconn in 2023 and went fourteenth overall that same june. three seasons later he is the piece another team wanted and his own team paid a small fee to relocate. the league moves fast on shooters who need the offense built around them.
Peavy going out in the same package matters too. That is two young wings off the roster in one transaction, which reads less like a talent grab and more like a roster-spot and payroll cleanup with a modest sweetener stapled on. I do not have the contract figures or the specific pick years in front of me yet, and until those come through I am not going to pretend I know exactly how much relief New Orleans bought.
What the Grizzlies get in the Jordan Hawkins trade
Memphis gets the best pure shooter in the deal and gets paid to take him. That is a fine day at the office.
| Side | Players in | Pick assets in |
|---|---|---|
| Grizzlies | 2 (Hawkins, Peavy) | 1 future second, 1 second-round swap |
| Pelicans | 2 (Johnson, Gibson) | 0 |
The Grizzlies have generally been at their best when the floor is spaced and the ball moves early, and a shooter who can be schemed for is a cheap way to buy that. Hawkins does not need to be a primary anything. He needs a corner, a runner off a wide pin-in, and someone willing to throw the pass on time. Peavy is the depth piece and the flier. If either one becomes a real rotation player, Memphis wins this comfortably, because it also collected the second-round capital on the way in.
The cost is Johnson, a young guard who has bounced without locking down a role, and Gibson. Neither departure reshapes the Grizzlies' top eight.
What comes next for AJ Johnson and the Pelicans
For New Orleans, the honest version is this: a change of direction on the wing and a clean roster spot, and the bet that Johnson's development curve is still in front of him. He has not had a stable place to grow yet. Now he has one, in a room that just cleared out two guys ahead of him. That is the version of this deal that could look smart in eighteen months.
What I am watching next is training-camp usage, because that is where these things get settled. Does Hawkins open in the Memphis rotation or does he open behind it? Does Johnson get real developmental minutes in New Orleans or does he get the same nine-minute shifts that have followed him around? Does Peavy stick on the roster at all? Nothing about a September second-round-sweetener trade announces itself. It just quietly shows up in the box scores in November.
Second-round picks and a swap for a lottery shooter you no longer want. That is a real decision, made in the quiet part of the calendar. Those are the ones I circle.
