Jrue Hol­i­day is the new Bradley Beal.

As long as the Wiz­ards con­tin­ue to sig­nal their All-Star shoot­ing guard is unavail­able, Nuggets fans will sali­vate over the pos­si­bil­i­ty of land­ing Hol­i­day from New Orleans.

Despite Denver’s inabil­i­ty (or unwill­ing­ness) to land pri­or big fish in trades, this one might be more real­is­tic. Hol­i­day, the Pel­i­cans’ star two-way guard, has one year left on his deal before hav­ing to decide on a $26.2 mil­lion play­er option. That is absolute­ly part of the equa­tion for suit­ors like Den­ver and Brooklyn.

If the Pel­i­cans are going to host a bid­ding war, teams want to know the like­li­hood Hol­i­day will be with them for at least two sea­sons. Hol­i­day, 30, aver­aged 19.1 points on 45% shoot­ing (35% from 3), 6.7 assists and 4.8 rebounds this past sea­son. He’s a phe­nom­e­nal defend­er and an even bet­ter team­mate. It’s not a coin­ci­dence his name is a con­stant in trade rumors.

Unlike in the Antho­ny Davis sweep­stakes, where Davis made it known he want­ed to be in Los Ange­les, the Pel­i­cans have lever­age. They also have plen­ty of rea­son to keep him if nei­ther the Nuggets nor the Nets (or any rumored des­ti­na­tion like Mia­mi or Dal­las) can com­pile a pack­age to their liking.

But let’s start in Brook­lyn, where “Bub­ble” star Caris LeV­ert would like­ly be at the cen­ter of the deal. LeV­ert has an injury his­to­ry, but he’s four years younger than Hol­i­day and still has an upward tra­jec­to­ry. LeV­ert is prob­a­bly the best asset avail­able from the two teams, con­sid­er­ing he’s under con­tract for three more sea­sons on a rea­son­able $52 mil­lion deal. From there, it’s what oth­er pieces would the Nets include? Agile cen­ter Jar­rett Allen’s name has been men­tioned as has for­mer Col­orado star Spencer Dinwiddie.

Brook­lyn needs to con­sid­er how much it’s will­ing to offer, again, for only one guar­an­teed year, as well as fit along­side ball-dom­i­nant super­stars Kyrie Irv­ing and Kevin Durant. One of the rea­sons Hol­i­day is so cov­et­ed, by many teams, is because he doesn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly need the ball in his hands to impact the game.

From fit to com­pen­sa­tion, those are the same ques­tions Nuggets pres­i­dent of bas­ket­ball oper­a­tions Tim Con­nel­ly has to ask him­self. In addi­tion, for any trade of this cal­iber to occur, Con­nel­ly would like­ly have to jeop­ar­dize the con­ti­nu­ity and cul­ture he’s been metic­u­lous­ly cul­ti­vat­ing for years. Not that Hol­i­day wouldn’t fit their estab­lished lock­er room, but Den­ver prides itself on build­ing from within.

With a cham­pi­onship win­dow open, many would argue it’s worth the cost.

But what that cost is remains flu­id and some­what unknown. Here’s an edu­cat­ed guess based on con­ver­sa­tions with sev­er­al league sources.

Any Hol­i­day trade with Den­ver would need to include either Gary Har­ris (two years left on deal worth an aver­age of $19.5 mil­lion annu­al­ly) or Will Bar­ton (two years left with aver­age of $14 mil­lion; play­er option 2021) for salary pur­pos­es. Har­ris’ trade val­ue is debat­able due to his grow­ing injury his­to­ry and regres­sion over his last two sea­sons. Bar­ton has had two sig­nif­i­cant injuries the last two sea­sons, but he’s been pro­duc­tive when healthy. Of the two, he’s like­ly got more appeal to New Orleans.

After that, the Nuggets would like­ly need to include cur­rent two-way cen­ter Bol Bol, who’s still tech­ni­cal­ly a rook­ie. If Bol devel­ops his body and ded­i­cates him­self on defense, he’s got entic­ing potential.

Oth­ers have spec­u­lat­ed that it would then take this year’s No. 22 pick, in addi­tion to pos­si­bly future draft picks.

But the swing piece, includ­ing this year’s first-round selec­tion, could be reserve guard Monte Mor­ris. Plen­ty around the NBA view the 25-year-old as a start­ing-cal­iber guard. Though he’s inter­est­ed in a con­tract exten­sion in Den­ver, it’s sig­nif­i­cant­ly eas­i­er to trade him with­out doing an exten­sion pri­or and let­ting New Orleans nego­ti­ate a deal. The Pel­i­cans would almost cer­tain­ly want to gauge Mor­ris’ lev­el of inter­est before any­thing got seri­ous. Mor­ris would be an unre­strict­ed free agent next season.

On the sur­face, that’s quite a bit to sac­ri­fice if you’re Den­ver. How­ev­er, a trade like this would give the Nuggets per­haps the best start­ing five in the NBA in Jamal Mur­ray, Hol­i­day, Michael Porter Jr., Jera­mi Grant and Niko­la Jokic.

If you think NBA fans have itchy trig­ger fin­gers, just imag­ine what league exec­u­tives have felt with­out being able to upgrade their ros­ters for months. Let the NBA’s sil­ly sea­son begin.