F Jabari Parker – Sacramento Kings
Over the years, Jabari Parker is a guy that has bounced around from team-to-team and has not found sustainability with any franchise due to his injury history. Every year it seems like something new is wrong with Parker, which has hindered his chances to be on the court.
Parker joined the Sacramento Kings near the end of the 2019-20 season and played in just 6 games for them. The Kings are Parker’s 5th team entering his 7th year in the league and although he has not found a solidified home with an NBA organization, he has been consistently good over the course of his career.
While he has missed a lot of time to injuries, Jabari Parker has averaged 14.9 points, 5.7 rebounds, 2.1 assists and has shot 49.3% from the floor, 32.4% from three-point range in 285 career NBA games. While he may not bring a lot of firepower to a team, he is a really consistent player and could definitely help this New Orleans Pelicans team.
From high school, through college, and now at the NBA level, Jabari Parker has always been known to be a hybrid-like power-forward and be a threat running in transition. This fits the mold of what the Pelicans are looking to add to their roster perfectly and with not much depth in their frontcourt, Jabari Parker could come in and make an impact immediately with the second-unit.
Right now, Nicolo Melli and Wenyen Gabriel are the only two power-forwards behind Zion Willamson on the active roster, which is not a lot of firepower and is something to be concerned with moving forward. Bringing in a reliable option like Parker for a low price could wind up being very beneficial, not to mention, Parker would be yet another former Duke Blue Devil to join the Pelicans.
Adding Jabari Parker is a win-win for the Pelicans because if he does not perform well/gets hurt, they have other players to be able to pick up the slack in the second-unit, but if he does play well, then they have a solidified backup power-forward. It makes a lot of sense for the Pelicans to target Parker, which is why they should see if they can acquire him for one to two second-round picks.
