Online chaos ensued on Monday, January 28 when ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski broke the news that New Orleans Pelicans forward Anthony Davis (through his agent, Rich Paul) has informed the team that he would not be signing any contract extension with them, and that he was requesting a trade to a team that allows him to win consistently. The request was made roughly one week before the NBA’s last day of making in-season trades, February 7.
More details and speculation regarding Davis’ trade request have surfaced in the aftermath of Woj’s initial tweet. The Los Angeles Lakers were said to be Davis’ team of choice (the former and the latter have already been linked together in rumors early on the season, with Lakers superstar LeBron James the subject of much criticism for publicly saying he wants to play with Davis).
The timing of the trade request seems to substantiate the claim that Davis wants to play for the Lakers since the team with the best available assets, the Boston Celtics are unable to pursue a trade with the Pelicans due to a rule in the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement that disallows TWO (2) traded players under the “Designated Rookie Extension” contract from playing on the same team.
(SIDE NOTE: It is frequently mentioned online that the “Rose Rule” is the reason for Boston’s inability to trade for Davis; this is incorrect. The Rose Rule is connected with the “Designated Rookie” rule, but are two different things. Read more about that here)
Last summer, Boston traded for Kyrie Irving, who is still under the “Designated Rookie” contract he signed with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Davis is currently that player for the Pelicans. Irving‘s aforementioned contract will expire on July 1, 2019 (if and when he declines his player option), thus allowing the Celtics to trade for Davis.
If Davis wanted to play for the Celtics, he could have made the trade request in July when Boston able to make a play for him. Instead, he chose a time when the Celtics are unable to participate in trade talks, and when the Lakers have the best young assets available.
The LA Times’ Brad Turner and Tania Ganguli also broke the news that the Pelicans’ asking price for Davis if the Lakers really do want to trade for him (they do) should “start with Lonzo Ball, Kyle Kuzma, Ivica Zubac and a first round pick”.
Davis has been fined $50, 000 by the NBA for making a public trade request. While requesting trades are acceptable and happen quite often, making these requests known to the public is a violation of NBA rules.
Now for some personal thoughts.
I badly want Anthony Davis on the Lakers. He is a generational talent who is averaging a career-high 29.3 points, 13.3 rebounds and 4.4 assists per game and has a 30.9 Player Efficiency Rating (PER). The league average is 15.0. That alone is enough reason to convince one to actually want Davis on their team.
Davis is also arguably a top-5 NBA player today (personally it’s LeBron, Kevin Durant, Anthony Davis, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Stephen Curry/James Harden, depending on the day of the week). Any time an opportunity to acquire a player of Davis’ caliber arises, you take that opportunity and yank it hard towards you with full force. You can worry about everything else later.
As for the Pelicans’ asking price, I am surprised that they didn’t include Brandon Ingram. Ingram isn’t seen as something special outside of Laker fandom, so it could be the reason New Orleans isn’t asking for him to start negotiations. Still, if the Pelicans decide they want him further down the negotiations, the Lakers should gift-wrap Brandon Ingram and hand him over to New Orleans with a basket of goodies.
I love the Lakers’ young core (the ones New Orleans asked for plus Ingram and Josh Hart), but if losing them is the price of getting a player of Anthony Davis’ caliber, then it’s a price the team (and fans) should be willing to play and not lose sleep over.
It’s understandable that fans get attached to players, especially after seeing them play their asses off. But we are fans of the team first and foremost, so the good of the team should be top priority. And anyway, we can still root for the players in their new environments just like what we’re doing for D’Angelo Russell, Julius Randle, Larry Nance Jr. and Jordan Clarkson, all beloved ex-Lakers. Still, it would hurt to watch them get traded, and that’s okay. Seeing LeBron and Davis helping the Lakers win their 17th championship would help ease the pain.
However, here’s a little exercise. If I get to pick one member of the young core to be excluded from the trade, it would be Lonzo Ball. Again, I equally love the kids, but Lonzo’s skillset is the most unique of them all. His combination of size, court vision, passing skills, feel for the game, speed and defense is not something you see often in a point guard in the NBA.
It’s great to have a Kyle Kuzma and Brandon Ingram on your team, but high scoring power forwards and lengthy, cutting small forwards are very replaceable commodities in the league. Lonzo is just a much better fit on a team that has LeBron James and Anthony Davis (and a possible third star next year like Durant or Klay Thompson).
Let me end this by saying that a trade is not guaranteed. New Orleans does not have to trade Anthony Davis now (although it could get quite awkward keeping a disgruntled superstar on your team), and new reports have surfaced that the Pelicans have “no intention” of trading Davis to the Lakers, and that New Orleans General Manager Dell Demps isn’t answering his phone.
The Pelicans can, and should, wait for Boston and its cache of assets to join in the mix in July. It would be bad business management if New Orleans caved and rushed a trade for the sake of trading. The realist in me doesn’t see a trade happening before the trade deadline on February 7. The Pelicans have no incentive to help out a rival team immediately.
But then again, crazier things have happened in the NBA. We’ll just have to sit back, wait and see what happens (while firing up ESPN’s trade machine and making every theoretical trade scenarios we can come up with until we fully descend into madness).
patrickkennan.com 