If Anthony Davis is today the heyday of the Lakers, he almost wears the colors of another cador. Except that it didn’t happen for a rather strange reason… New Orleans would have released some rather annoying information regarding him, in order to dissuade a competitor.
Seven seasons averaging more than 23 points, 10 rebounds and two blocks: individually speaking, Anthony Davis made a fairly remarkable stint with the Pelicans who drafted him in first position in 2013. But between his repeated injuries and the lack of collective results (a qualification for the second round of the playoffs), the separation finally took place in 2019, when the interior demanded his transfer. As we know, it was then the Lakers who won the race.
But if the experience paid off in the short term, since the Pourpres et Ors won the title a few months later, the Brow almost never played in the City of Angels. As journalist Adam Kaufman recently revealed, the Celtics were close to closing a deal with NOLA. If we thought that it had flipped over because of the Greens and Whitesthe insider claims that the Louisiana franchise would have done everything to lower the rating of the big man in their eyes:
AD described as a problem player by the Pelicans?
I go back to something I was told a few years ago when the Celtics were trying to get Anthony Davis from New Orleans. A member of the Pelicans organization pulled me aside and said, “If your guys are trying to trade for Anthony Davis, Marcus Smart better not be part of the trade, because you’ll need of someone like him to yell at Anthony to stay on his back.
Remember that despite his physical fragility, AD was then considered one of the very best players in the league from a potential point of view. To make such comments regarding him, especially coming from his own team, might therefore seem particularly surprising since he was then considered an easily distracted athlete who had to be watched by the leaders of the Boston locker room. But according to Kaufman, it didn’t stop there:
The guy said he’s never seen anyone make more passes in the coaching room. So once more, you may not agree with what this person said, but he was an important person in this organization.
It remains to be seen whether New Orleans was seeking to end negotiations with the C’s at all costs, or whether it was a way of getting revenge on the player.
Because at the time of leaving the Big Easy, we cannot say that the relationship of the superstar with the city was at the top. The person concerned had notably landed with a T-shirt bearing the inscription “That’s all, folks” (That’s all guys, editor’s note) at a match at the end of the season, clearly suggesting that he did not want to stay. A gesture not very well taken by the fans, unsurprisingly… but perhaps also by its leaders, especially since it had frustrated them by dint of squatting the infirmary.
Anthony Davis might have landed at the Celtics rather than continuing his career at the Lakers, but a member of the Pelicans did everything to gun down his image with the Greens and Whites. Not really a very classy gesture, because it made The Brow look incompetent.