Philadelphia 76ers should attempt trade for Jrue Holiday, not Anthony Davis

As great as it would be to see a team like the Philadelphia 76ers land Anthony Davis from the New Orleans Pelicans, they should pursue Jrue Holiday instead.

With the recent news from the weekend regarding Anthony Davis telling the New Orleans Pelicans he would prefer a trade from the team, just about every Philadelphia 76ers fan has been doing their best to figure out a scenario in which the superstar forward joins Brett Brown‘s squad.

From a realistic standpoint, the chances of the Sixers convincing the Pelicans to send Davis their way seems like an absolute long shot at this point, mainly because of what Philadelphia would need to give up as part of the process.

Since New Orleans is smart enough to know just how special of a player they have in Davis, they aren’t going to make it easy for any team expressing interest when it comes to potential players that could be involved, meaning a key player or two would most likely need to be on the move.

As for the Sixers, any chance of the team landing Davis would most likely mean that Ben Simmons or Joel Embiid would have to be on the move, which is never going to happen.

No matter how talented of a player Davis is, the last thing Philadelphia wants to do is give up on one of their own stars in Simmons or Embiid since the duo continues to help the Sixers be one of the teams to beat in the Eastern Conference.

Of course, if the Sixers were to still end up involved with the trade for Davis if multiple teams were to become involved, one player they may want to think about pursuing is Jrue Holiday.

Back in 2013, Philadelphia pulled off a surprise trade during the NBA Draft in which they sent their star guard to New Orleans to land the No. 6 pick, which they would use on former Kentucky star Nerlens Noel.

At the time, it was easy to understand why the Sixers were willing to pull the trigger on this trade since Noel fell a few spots in the draft as a result of a torn ACL suffered a few months before at Kentucky.

However, when looking back at the trade, there’s no question that Philadelphia would have taken a much different approach since Noel’s time with the Sixers was a disappointment for the most part before the team ended up trading him to the Dallas Mavericks in 2017.

To say that Philadelphia was able to trade Holiday when his stock was super high would be a huge understatement when considering he was one of the lone highlights of the team at the time. And while Holiday may have been upset over the team trading him at the time, the circumstances are much different this time around, as he would seem like a great fit for a team on the rise like the Sixers.

Despite how frustrating things have been at times in New Orleans for the most part, Holiday continues to put up solid numbers at shooting guard, and is arguably in the middle of his best NBA season by averaging just over 21 points per game along with around eight assists.

While Philadelphia would most likely have to give up a player or two they would prefer to keep or even a future draft pick just to have Holiday considered, there’s no question this would seem worth it in the overall picture.

At the end of the day, if the Sixers were to convince the Pelicans to make Holiday part of a deal that would result in him joining a team already consisting of Simmons, Embiid, and Jimmy Butler, this could make them even more dangerous to compete with in the Eastern Conference.