The New Orleans Pelicans have not acquired a new player other than Darius Miller, likely on a minimum deal. Part of this is the slower pace of the offseason, and part of it is the Pelicans’ lack of assets while hunting for a certain kind of player of value. I wrote about nonguaranteed contracts last week as a possibly underappreciated asset. Here is another.
Dante Cunningham and Donatas Motiejunas are the Pelicans’ own free agents. They have Dante’s Full Bird Rights, while they have Motiejunas’ Non-Bird Rights. They can use these or other exceptions to sign those players, though Non-Bird Rights are quite limiting in terms of salary range.