Anthony Davis Reportedly Has ‘Equal’ Interest In The Knicks And Lakers


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With under 20 hours until the NBA trade deadline, Anthony Davis remains the most high-profile trade target. However, despite his public request to be dealt by New Orleans, it seems more likely than not that he will finish the season with the Pelicans and trade discussions will resume around draft time.

The Pelicans have plenty of reason to wait until the summer, but Davis and his camp clearly would prefer he have a new home by Thursday afternoon. The problem is, their efforts at pressuring the Pelicans into taking the Lakers deal appears to have backfired, to the point that there’s speculation that New Orleans has purposefully allowed the Lakers to poison their own locker room in their haste to trade for Davis.


The most recent report from Marc Stein of the New York Times indicates that while Davis has a list of four teams he’d consider re-signing with (including the Bucks and Clippers) his top tier is not just the Lakers, but also includes the Knicks on “equal footing.”

Stein goes on to note that, as expected, Davis will play out his deal through 2020 wherever he goes and assess things that summer, but there are simply a few teams with which he would entertain the idea of re-signing. It’s clear the Knicks are high on the list of desired destinations, and this information being made public seems to be in the effort of making the Knicks push the chips in on a Davis trade right now.

The problem there is, like the Lakers, the Knicks don’t have the greatest of chips. While L.A. has thrown all of their young guys and a pair of draft picks at the Pelicans, it’s not been enough — for a variety of reasons, one of which being New Orleans simply doesn’t want to trade with them. The Knicks tried to make a deal happen around Kristaps Porzingis, but questions about his health and willingness to stay in New Orleans long term ended those talks quickly.

That means the Knicks would need to build a trade around Kevin Knox and their 2019 first-round pick. Right now, that first-rounder has a 14 percent chance of being No. 1, and as such, Zion Williamson. In June, the Pelicans will know exactly where that pick is, and so waiting the Knicks out is probably a better decision than making a deal now. New York could try to add other picks to sweeten the pot, but like with the Lakers, New Orleans, to move him now before the Celtics can get in the mix and the top overall pick is determined would require a team to absolutely blow them away.

It seems clear the Lakers can’t do that and highly unlikely New York can either.

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