The New Orleans Pelicans are going to trade Anthony Davis at some point over the next calendar year, but it’s becoming increasingly unlikely that a deal gets done by next Thursday’s trade deadline.
Davis has requested his trade and at some point the Pelicans will have to acquiesce to his demands in order to get some kind of value in return. The question everyone is waiting on the answer for is what is the priority for New Orleans in a Davis trade. They could go for best player available, a package of young players, or the best draft assets.
There is a fourth priority the Pelicans can have and it’s the only thing that, right now, we know they care about: Not sending Davis to the Lakers. The best package New Orleans is likely to receive before next Thursday is from L.A., but they can wait until this summer to let the Celtics enter the fray as well as teams that will know what draft picks they have after the lottery.
According to ESPN’s Zach Lowe and Adrian Wojnarowski, to this point Dell Demps has been fielding calls about Davis with one notable exception. He hasn’t answered or returned any calls from Lakers GM Rob Pelinka.
As the NBA trade deadline looms within a week, the Lakers’ immediate pursuit of All-Star forward Anthony Davis is fraught with innumerable obstacles — including the fact that Pelicans general manager Dell Demps has yet to return a call to Lakers GM Rob Pelinka, league sources told ESPN.
This seems to be a message being sent to L.A. and Rich Paul that they will put in the work to deal Davis, but will not simply send him on his way to the Lakers. As Lowe and Woj note, if he wants to go to L.A., it’ll need to be as a free agent in 2020 after the Lakers have to stay in limbo for another full season, effectively wasting two of their four years with LeBron James.
Paul will undoubtedly try to counter this by making sure all other teams are aware of Davis’ intentions and that any trade for him will be a one-year rental. The hope would be the offers from those other teams wouldn’t meet the value of the Lakers and the Pelicans would eventually budge off their “anyone but the Lakers” stance. However, it’s possible New Orleans is fine taking a different package than the combination of young players and assets L.A. will offer, in hopes they strike gold like Indiana did in trading Paul George for what was considered at the time pennies on the dollar.
Boston, per ESPN, continues to tell New Orleans they aren’t worried about Paul and Davis’ proclamations that it’s L.A. or bust, believing their culture and opportunity to win titles would be able to keep him with the Celtics. We’ll see what offer Danny Ainge, who is notorious for getting the most for the least, is willing to put on the table, but they certainly have the assets to get it done if they really want to.
All of this is to say, the next few months will be fascinating. If something changes and the Lakers somehow can cobble together a Godfather offer the Pellies can’t refuse in the coming week, we’ll get to see a Davis-LeBron led group. Given we know everything L.A. can offer, it’s hard to see them pulling that off, and as such this saga will drag out into the summer, bringing Boston, New York, and others into the fold with Davis possibly sitting out the remainder of the season in New Orleans.
UPDATE: They’ve talked! What this means, who knows, but it seems they’re done “sending a message” or whatever and will now talk to the Lakers over the phone about a potential trade that is not likely to take place before the deadline.
Lakers and Pelicans executives have connected on the phone concerning Anthony Davis, league sources tell ESPN. They're expected to talk again prior to next week's trade deadline.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) January 31, 2019
