Getty Anthony Davis and LeBron James
Could Anthony Davis and LeBron James still become Los Angeles Lakers teammates?
David Griffin is in a new role with the New Orleans Pelicans.
New Orleans Pelicans, David Griffin: a work in progress for a while!
He has familiarity with LeBron James during their Cavs days and some think that that could sway his decision in a potential trade to send AD to LA.
After all, it was AD’s midseason trade request via his agent Rich Paul of Klutch that created the daily Pelicans, Lakers soap opera.
Okay, say AD does go to LA.
NBA insider, Ric Bucher told me on the Scoop B Radio Podcast that that doesn’t scare him!
Check out a snippet from our chat via Scoop B Radio below:
Brandon ‘Scoop B’ Robinson: And Anthony Davis would fit, but he’s still got a year left on his contract at the end of the season.
Ric Bucher: Yeah, and what is he really? Like, i’m not blown away. If LeBron and AD get together, that doesn’t scare me. One, because, if you’re talking about playing for titles, you need a lot more than that, so if you’re going to get him in the short term, if you’re going to get him for next year, it means you’re gonna have to give up some of the assets, some of the players, some of the talent you have right now, okay? That talent isn’t all that great, but even so, how are you going to replace it? Where are you going to get the replacement pieces? They went to the leftover bin, no offense to Michael Beasley and Lance Stephenson and Rajon Rondo, but you know, they were scuffling for quality veterans this year. What is to say that they’re going to get better quality next year? And as we know, if you’re talking about playing for championships, it’s not just having, you know, that core, that quality core, which plenty of teams, I mean, Philadelphia 76ers, you look at their core and say it’s pretty diverse for two, three players is pretty damn good. They didn’t get out of the second round, right? So I don’t, you know, Anthony Davis alone, and then the other part is like what’s AD giving? You put LeBron and Kyrie back together, now i’m paying attention, cause Kyrie gives you something that allows LeBron to be a facilitator and Kyrie can close games. Anthony Davis isn’t a closer, and this year even? Jrue Holiday is the guy, I mean there’s literally been times I’m watching the Pelicans and i’m like, “where’s AD?” Like, well, he’s not there, he’s on the bench in the fourth quarter, but there have been times earlier in the season where he was on the floor and I had to look, I had to find him because the action and the attention was not on him. It was Jrue Holiday getting things done, he was the driving force. And so I think that’s a great conundrum that the Lakers have, especially if it looks like they’re not even good enough to make the playoffs this year. Like, okay, so that, to me, hurts you in your selling to AD or anybody else. The difference between saying ‘I’m joining a playoff team’, even as an eighth seed, and now I can bump this up to ‘Now I got to join them just so we are sure to getting into the playoffs’? To me, that’s a significant difference.