There Is More Smoke Around Anthony Davis Potentially Leaving The Lakers

(NY Post) – Looking at the big picture, Mills sees this as the start of the third season of a rebuilding plan — with the Knicks still having an opportunity to add a final-piece superstar, whether via trade or free agency, because of their cap flexibility from the series of one-year pacts.

The 2020 free-agent pool is short on stars, but they could be one of the favorites for big fish Anthony Davis if the Lakers implode. Rich Paul, Davis’ agent, likes the idea of his client in New York, according to a source.

I’ll admit, I never get old of the rumors of a superstar ending up in New York which then gets their fans excited and they bust out photoshop after photoshop only to see it crash and burn where they have to end up overpaying for guys like Julius Randle. HOWEVAH, as fun as that is, you need to take it up a notch when we’re talking about all this smoke around Anthony Davis’ future in LA. Shit the games haven’t even started yet and nothing we’ve heard either from him or “sources” would have me feeling all that confident as a Lakers fan. There was what he said to Rachel Nichols

Which on the surface is what you would expect, but after saying all year how the Lakers were the ONLY team he would sign an extension with, and you know they are going to give him a max offer, it felt weird that he was so noncommittal. Even if he didn’t mean it, players say that shit all the time, just look at Kyrie Irving. Then there was that report in the Chicago Tribune a few weeks ago about potentially one day playing in Chicago

“I mean, (this is) definitely hometown,” he said. “If the opportunity ever presents itself and when that time comes, I’d definitely consider it.”

Davis, who grew up in Englewood and rose from relative obscurity at Perspectives Charter School to win a national title at Kentucky and become a six-time All-Star by age 26, offered a more substantive answer about why giving back to his community matters to him.

“It’s a connection,” he said. “A lot of these kids are from the same neighborhoods that I’m from. And so to have someone come back that they can relate to, I think that’s a huge impact on them.

And now we have reports that his new agent Rich Paul wouldn’t hate the idea of Davis heading to NYK if things turn out to be a disaster with the Lakers. I’ll ask you, what scenario is more likely? That a team with only AD/LeBron and a bunch of “meh” talent around them have a fully healthy and successful seasons where they win like 55 games and a title? Or the possibility that they struggle for stretches, guys miss games and this is like a 4-5 seed that loses in the second round and Davis realizes he hates playing with LeBron? Remember, the Lakers #1 plan was to land TWO big fish this summer, and that’s probably why Klutch forced the AD trade to happen, but as we know things didn’t exactly work out that way. If LeBron shows even slight sign of actually aging, it’s not crazy to think that Davis wouldn’t want to commit to a post LeBron Laker life if there’s no other elite talent around him. Remember they gave up all their young talent minus Kuzma and every pick basically for the next hundred years. Once LeBron leaves/retires this team is probably worse than what AD had in New Orleans.

Of course, the obvious answer is whatever this “source” is, it’s probably just some agent posturing in an effort to make sure the Lakers actually do whatever they can to continue to improve their roster. The problem is, players nowadays are so godadmn unpredictable it would not be the craziest thing we’ve seen if AD bounced after just one year. It’s probably unlikely, but you can’t ignore the signs we’ve had so far so just keep this in the back of your mind the first time the Lakers lose like 4 of 5 or prove to be just a middle of the pack team out West.