The Pelicans are in a terrible spot to be honest, they have to be good in order to retain Cousins who will be a FA at the end of next season. The biggest issue for them is that they don't have cap flexibility to really improve the roster, case in point they pretty much have to re-sign Jrue Holiday because they don't have the space to sign anyone else in his place, and if they do re-sign him that's there team until 2020 because of all the awful contracts they've handed out - Hill, Moore and Asik are making 1/3 of the cap until 2020. Next year Cousins will get 1/3 of the cap, so their roster that you see put together at the end of this summer will essentially be their team going forward unless they strike gold in the draft next year.
I could see why a Love for Cousins trade would be appealing, only if they could get another player like Shumpert added in because they need more talent anyway they can get it.