I have really enjoyed watching the young core of the pelicans this year (When Willie green has played them smh), Queen has shown huge upside, Fears has been surprisingly good in my opinion, and TM3 has looked like a really good scorer alongside them, with Herb being an obviously good connective defensive piece. Hot take maybe... but I think I like this team better without Zion, and I have traditionally been way higher on him than most, this season I had him projected to make ANBA2nd team, but it feels like he is trending really far down.

Zion's play-style I feel makes him the centre-point of the construction of the team, he is such a good inside scorer, that you need to surround him with players who can space the floor and create for and with him. This means that when he isn't healthy, the team is effected even worse when he is off the floor, than it would be with other teams losing their star, like my Timberwolves for example, the team isnt built FOR Ant, like with Zion, it is built AROUND him. If Ant gets injured like we saw earlier in the season, players like randle and mcdaniels can step up as offensive threats and play through the same constructed offence, but on the pelicans, because the team is so zion-centricly built, it looks like a completely different team when he is off-and-on the court, players have different roles and abilities that they do not usually utilise, for example Derik Queen actually being able to be a ball handler and have more playing time, Trey murphy being an offensive creator and threat on cuts rather than just being a glorified floor spacer, Fears actually running the offence and being a threat downhill, all the good parts of this team seem to get taken away when Zion is on the floor. And if Zion was able to play 70 games that would be perfectly fine, he would be the offence, and for good reason, the team would be able compete with him driving the ship as one of the best players in the NBA, but he can't play enough games to even drive them to the post season. I think the Pelicans should do a full reset, get their pick next year back from Mil, fire Will Green, fire their GM, hell even sell the team, and just focus on the future, because at least from my perspective, it has looked surprisingly bright to start the year.

This trade is mainly about the Pels moving on from Zion, but also the Bucks get Zion who even though he is very injury prone, they need something for the future, with Giannis possibly leaving in FA, or requesting a trade, and not having their own FRP and even though there are all those risks associated with Zion, the Bucks would proably want at least something to build around, so they don't turn into the Nets but without all the draft picks in storage.