J-Speaks: Pelicans' All-Star Anthony Davis Request To Be Traded

After making the playoffs and winning a playoff series for the first time in a decade, the New Orleans Pelicans entered this season with the expectation of taking that next step with their All-Star centerpiece leading the way. Injuries and inconsistent play have really squashed those dreams and now said star player, who is eligible for a major extension this summer went to management and said players’ agent informed the Pelicans he wants out and soon. 

According to ESPN NBA Insider Adrian Wojnarowski, perennial All-Star power forward/center Anthony Davis through his agent of “Klutch Sports” Rich Paul, who also represents four-time Kia MVP LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers says that he requested to be traded from the team that he has played his entire seven-year career for. 

 “Although we are disappointed in this decision, our organization’s top priority is to bring an NBA championship to our city…Relative to the specific talks of a trade, we will do this on our timeline. One that makes sense for our team and it will not be dictated by those outside of our organization.”

Paul also informed the Pelicans that Davis has no plans on signing a long-term super max contract extension of five years at $240 million if and when he is offered. 

That means unless Davis were not to be traded, which is very unlikely now, he could become a free agent in the summer of 2020. 

“Anthony wants to be traded to a team that allows him the chance to win consistently and compete for a championship,” Paul told Wojnarowski. 

Paul added by saying for the timing of his client’s trade request, “Anthony wanted to be honest and clear with his intentions and that’s the reason for informing them of this decision now. That’s in the best interests of both Anthony’s and the organization’s future.” 

As for the presents, Davis prior to the announcement of him through his agent requesting a trade had conversed with his teammates prior to his decision and starting lead guard Jrue Holiday said to the media after practice on Monday afternoon that Davis is “like a brother to us.” 

“I’ve been here for six years with him and just the fact that he felt like he had that connection and that respect for not only me but everybody on this team.” 

He added per Will Guilory of “The Athletic,” “Anthony had to do what’s best for him. It’s business…he’s going to come in here and work.”  

Pelicans head coach Alvin Gentry in speaking with Davis early Monday morning said that he would play the rest of the season once the swelling from his sprained left index finger that he injured in the team’s 128-112 loss at the Portland Trail Blazers (31-20) on Jan. 18 that was expected to sideline him up to two weeks.

This finger injury, along with an ankle injury earlier this season and a hip injury in November 2018 has limited Davis to just 41 games this season, he has averaged 29.3 points (3^rd NBA), 13.3 rebounds (4^th NBA), 4.4 assists, 1.7 steals and 2.6 blocks (2^nd NBA) per game this season. 

He has scored 30 points or more in 12 games this season and 40 points or more seven times but the Pelicans are just 11-8 in those 19 games. 

“He plans on playing out the season,” Gentry said on Monday writes Andrew Lopez of The Times-Picayune. “That’s my role as to try and win as many games as we possibly can. I think AD is a professional guy. He’s going to play as hard as he can once he gets well and we’re going to the best we can to try and put our team in a position to win games.”

Coach Gentry added about his best player’s trade request said per The Time-Picayune, “I spoke to the team this morning and I think everybody understands it’s part of the business. I thought we had a good practice. It was a spirited one. That’s all we can do. We have to come out and prepare the team. He’s still under contract. When he gets healthy, he’ll play.”

The news of Davis’ trade requests provides a great opportunity for two of the most prestigious franchises in “The Association” in the Los Angeles Lakers, winners of 16 Larry O’Brien trophies and the Boston Celtics, winners of 17 NBA titles. 

While the Lakers may have a slight advantage in terms of Davis as mentioned earlier having the same agent as James and they can do a deal with the Pelicans for Davis now. 

One person who wants to see this happen is former Laker, and former head coach of the New Orleans Hornets, now the Charlotte Hornets Byron Scott, who won three rings playing alongside Hall of Famer and Lakers team president Earvin “Magic” Johnson. 

The Celtics, who have been rumored over the past few years as the team to acquire Davis have a treasure chest of assets of young players like Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown; draft picks, including two protected First-Round picks from the Memphis Grizzlies and Los Angeles Clippers and veterans on favorable contracts that would not only provide the necessary assets that could make such a blockbuster trade possible. 

The current No. 5 Seed in the East at 30-19 cannot make this deal to happen now because of a tied rule tied to when Davis and Celtics All-Star Kyrie Irving signed their last contract extensions. 

That rule in the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement known as the “Rose Rule,” named after Minnesota Timberwolves guard Derrick Rose that allows certain players coming off their rookie scale deals to earn 30 percent of the salary cap as opposed to 25 percent. 

In order to be eligible for this deal, a player had to have won Kia MVP, Kia Defensive Player of the Year (DPOY) or two All-NBA selections during their first four seasons of their career, which Rose did in the 2010-11 season becoming the youngest player to win Kia MVP. 

When Davis and Irving signed their extensions in 2015 and 2014 respectively, two All-Star starter nods was in place of DPOY in the rule.  

The Celtics acquired Irving via trade from the Cleveland Cavaliers in August 2017, which meant they cannot make a deal for Davis-or any other player who has signed such an extension until Irving leaves or agrees to a new deal, which is not expected to happen anytime soon. The only other option for the Celtics to acquire Davis now would be to include Irving in a trade but that is not expected to happen either. 

Irving will become an unrestricted free agent at season’s end and did express before the start of this season his intention to re-sign. The earliest he would be able to do so is the start of the free agency period on July 1, 2019.   

If the Pelicans trade Davis and he plays out the remainder of his current contract, the team that trades for him could re-sign him to a five-year, $205 million extension in the summer of 2020. 

If Davis were to be an unrestricted free agent in 2020, the most Davis could sign with a new team is a four-year, $152 million deal. 

The Pelicans, who have lost three in a row and seven of their last eight, putting them below the playoff line in the rugged Western Conference. Last season the Pelicans behind a 48-34 record made the postseason for the first time since 2015 and led by Davis the No. 6 Seeded Pelicans swept the No. 3 Seeded Portland Trail Blazers 4-0 winning their first playoff series since 2008. The season ended at the hands of the eventual back-to-back champion Golden State Warriors in the Semifinals 4-1. 

Davis is an elite superstar on a team that has not put together pieces around him to give them a chance to contend for a championship. In four of his first six seasons, the Pelicans missed out on the postseason and it looks like they will be on the outside looking in this spring. 

He joins fellow All-Stars Kawhi Leonard, now of the Toronto Raptors and current member of the Oklahoma City Thunder Paul George as the latest players to bluntly say: move me or lose me for nothing. 

The difference from how Leonard and George requested to be dealt from the San Antonio Spurs and Indiana Pacers over the last two off-seasons respectively is the Pelicans do not want to trade the five-time All-Star and All-NBA First-Team selection in three of the past four seasons, who as mentioned is eligible for a five-year super max contract extension in 2020 for $240 million. 

The other difference with Davis’ situation as compared to that of Leonard and George is as Amin Elhassan pointed out on the Monday edition of “NBA: The Jump” on ESPN that by him expressing to Pelicans management that he has no intention of signing that super-max extension this summer gives general manager Dell Demps and the front office of the Pelicans the necessary time and focus to get “maximum return on him. 

Davis could have kept quiet, been a team player and gone about his business and at the next trade deadline made a lot of noise about being moved and that would have put the Pelicans under the gun where getting the best deal for both parties involved would have been close to impossible. 

“So, he needs to be applauded for giving them this opportunity,” Elhassan said. 

Today’s NBA player, especially those of superstar status want to go to a place where they have the opportunity to maximize their prime years. 

The best example of this is future Hall of Famer Kevin Garnett who missed out on the postseason for three straight springs with the Timberwolves after they made it to the Western Conference Finals in 2004 falling to the Lakers in six games. 

He wasted those prime years before he was dealt to the Celtics in the summer of 2007 and teamed up with Paul Pierce, Hall of Famer Rajon Rondo to win it all in that season defeating the Lakers in six games. They made it back to The Finals two years later but lost to the Lakers in seven games that June. 

“When you hear that, it makes you think, I’m not going to lie, it makes you think,” Davis said in an interview with ESPN’s Rachel Nichols in Feb. 2018, “because you wonder if you’re following that same path, but then again you’re like, ‘This is year could be the year.’ You don’t know. So, you just got to take it year-by-year and see. 

Davis has seen the Pelicans basically stay pat, not re-signing All-Stars in Rondo or DeMarcus Cousins, who tore his Achilles on Jan. 26, 2018 and both left for the Lakers and Warriors respectably this off-season. 

The New Orleans Pelicans in the seven seasons with Anthony Davis on their roster have simply dropped the ball in terms of becoming a playoff perennial and now he wants out and there are plenty of teams that are interested in trading for him like the Celtics and the Lakers. 

As Pelicans owner Gayle Benson told “The Athletic,” “I really like what we have in place. I really like Anthony, but if he wants to leave, you can’t hold him back.” 

The reality of today’s NBA is that when you have a game-changing franchise player on your team, if you do not manage your franchise +correctly when you have player of that caliber like Anthony Davis in the seven to eight years you have them, it is just a matter of time when they want out. 

The ball, no pun intended is in the Pelicans court and they now have to make a big decision on what they will do with a star player that clearly wants to be somewhere he has a chance to compete for championships.  

Information, statistics, and quotations are courtesy of 11/26/18 www.boston.com story “Why the Celtics Can’t Trade for Anthony Davis Unless They Deal Kyrie Irving,” by Nicole Yang; 1/28/19 3 p.m. edition of “NBA: The Jump” on ESPN with Rachel Nichols, Amin Elhassan, Byron Scott, Adrian Wojnarowski and Dave McMenamin; 1/28/19 6 p.m. edition NBATV’s “The Starters,” presented by Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey with Tas Melas, J.E. Skeets, Leigh Ellis, and Trey Kerby; and 1/28/19 www.nba.com story, “Anthony Davis Requests Trade From Pelicans.”