And-Ones: Pelicans, Conley, Magic

It’s widely known that the Pelicans want to shake up their roster, according to USA Today’s Sam Amick, who says in a video report that sources tell him New Orleans has been much more willing to trade Eric Gordon than Ryan Anderson. Of course, the broken right ring finger that’s likely to keep Gordon out for the next four to six weeks complicates that situation. The Kings reportedly turned down an offer from New Orleans of Gordon and Alonzo Gee recently amid talks about Rudy Gay, as Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports reported last week. See more from around the NBA:

  • Mike Conley gave strong indication that he’d be hard-pressed to sign with any team other than the Grizzlies in free agency this summer, pegging the difficulty of leaving teammate Marc Gasol as an 11 on a scale of 1 to 10 in response to a question from Matt Moore of CBSSports.com (Twitter link). We recently discussed Conley’s impending free agency in Tuesday’s Community Shootaround.
  • The Magic have lost eight of their last nine games, and GM Rob Hennigan pins it on inconsistency that stems from having a roster laden with young players, as he told Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel. Hennigan said he accepts blame for building a roster that perhaps has too much youth and suggested that he’s been trying to make moves to add experienced hands. “We’ll continue to be extremely selective with the types of veterans we pursue. But rest assured we’ll aggressively pursue any and all players that we feel fit the character of our team and can help push the team forward,” Hennigan said as part of a larger interview with the Sentinel scribe.
  • Hennigan also hinted that he played a role in the team’s decision to bench former No. 2 overall pick Victor Oladipo earlier this season and praised coach Scott Skiles, citing the need for patience with the first-year coach even though it’s not his first NBA head coaching gig, as Robbins relays. The GM indicated a strong desire to retain soon-to-be restricted free agent Evan Fournier, countering the idea that the team isn’t entirely sure about re-signing him. “We really value Evan,” Hennigan said to Robbins. “We’ve said that all along, and I’ll say about Evan what we said about Tobias [Harris], which is it’s our intention that he’ll be here for many years to come. We really, really like him and think he’s a great piece to continue to grow with our team.”
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