Anthony Davis is in a better place than he was last weekend, hunkering down in Cleveland with his team sitting in 14th place in the West. Since then, they have won three straight games, and the New Orleans Pelicans now sit just three games behind the Los Angeles Lakers for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference.
So it is all good in NOLA … except for the fact that the roster is not deep enough for the Pelicans to make a deep playoff run.
The trade deadline is a month away, and a sustained losing streak could convince Davis to ask for a trade.
If he does, the Lakers will have a better chance of getting him than the Boston Celtics.
After Davis grabbed a career-high 28 rebounds in a loss to the Brooklyn Nets on Wednesday night, this is what I was told.
“It was like he was sleepwalking. He had no interest in what was going on. He wasn’t even trying to contest shots,” one Nets player told GetMoreSports.com.
In the locker room after the game in Brooklyn, Davis played with his phone for nearly 30 minutes, took a shower and then answered questions from the media.
This reporter asked whether and when playing for the 14th-best team in a 15-team conference might become too much.
“Next question,” was his most prescient response he gave as he avoided almost all eye contact.
Some players like to answer questions honestly, some like to ignore the obvious. Thank goodness for LeBron James and Enes Kanter.
“We’re a better team than our record shows, and we all know that. We’re not closing out games, we’re not getting off to good starts.”
When Davis will reach his tipping point is anyone’s guess, but some sort of a push to get traded could be coming in the not-too-distant future.
How it is done semantically, and whether it is done privately or publicly, are some of the open questions.
It is no secret that the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics both would like to acquire Davis in a trade, but the Pelicans are in the driver’s seat — to a certain degree — because Davis still has one more year remaining on his contract after this season.
He may want to push, but the Pelicans can push right back.
GetMoreSports.com was the first to report back in October that Davis’ list of desirable destinations includes the Lakers, Celtics, Knicks and Sixers, with the caveat that he might want to stay with the Pelicans if general manager Dell Demps can upgrade the roster.
Thing is, with Nikola Mirotic and Elfrid Payton only recently having returned, there is not a lot in the Pelicans’ cupboard to trade. New Orleans does not even own an incoming pick from another team.
They are about to begin a five-game road swing to play the Timberwolves, Clippers, Warriors, Trail Blazers and Grizzlies, and there is not a cupcake on the menu until Feb. 6 in Chicago — the night before the NBA trade deadline.
WHERE WILL ANTHONY DAVIS EVENTUALLY LAND?
So let’s say that Davis goes ahead and makes a trade request, and tells the Pelicans he wants it done now — not after the season. This would be most beneficial the the Lakers.
Boston has four first-round picks in the 2019 draft, plus a ton of young players who would interest the Pelicans. But if they did not have a handshake agreement with Davis to ensure that he would sign a long-term deal with them after opting out of his contract in 2020, Danny Ainge would not load up the wheelbarrow.
Also, they could not have Kyrie Irving and Davis on the same team until the summer of 2019 due to NBA salary cap rules.
The Lakers, on the other hand, could take that risk.
If Los Angeles added at least one first-round pick to the offer below, would the Pelicans say no? (Keep in mind that Kantavious Caldwell-Pope has a trade veto, but he also shares the same agent as LeBron James and Davis.)
Certainly Kyle Kuzma would be a more desirable acquisition than Ingram, but if the Lakers are dealing from a position of strength, Kuzma is somebody they would want to keep. An extra draft pick might be just the sweetener that might get the Pelicans to bite.
But let’s play devil’s advocate and say the Celtics were indeed able to get a handshake from Davis, with the caveat that the trade needed to be made prior to Feb. 7. How could that get done? Remember, Irving would be to be dealt away, and there would be draft picks going to New Orleans — probably from both the Knicks and the Celtics.
No way the Knicks would trade Porzingis, you say? Maybe so. The Unicorn is the cornerstone of the Knickerbockers franchise, but the guy is coming off a torn ACL, and the Knicks wpould presumably be getting one of Boston’s extra picks — and perhaps a throw-in or two from Ainge that keeps the deal within cap rules.
Heck, there are literally hundreds of prospective trades being discussed as we move into mid-January. Most will not happen, and plenty of teams are willing to wait until the trade deadline ends and good players on bad teams become available via buyouts.
There also are plenty of players in China with NBA experience, and those guys can sign onto NBA rosters once the CBA regular season ends in late February.
But as far as Davis goes, it all comes down to this:
If he wants out of New Orleans, and he pushes to get out of New Orleans … the best bet is that he ends up playing alongside LeBron James.
