The Davis Deadline

Man it's been quite a week in the NBA. If you do not know; this past Thursday at 3pm sharp was the official trade deadline. If you were a team trying to either get better, drop overpaid players, or ship your star player for future success, now was the time to do it. Every year as the season gets close to February things start to get a little crazy in the NBA. As of recently, the NBA has been feeling like one of those VH1 reality shows that gets wilder and wilder as they go on, but I guess that's what we should expect in this new age of super young players and social media ruling over the NBA. The biggest news in this year's race to the free agency deadline is the Pelicans’ Star Anthony “AD” Davis.

On January 28th, Davis told Pelicans officials and the public that he does not intend to resign with the team in 2020 when he becomes a free agent. Now to be fair, AD did this out of respect. Davis has given the Pelicans a year and a half to find a deal that benefits them and hopefully they return the respect and send him somewhere that benefits him also.

This season AD has been signed to player agency Clutch Sports. You may ask, who owns Clutch Sports? LeBron James. Who desperately needs help right now in L.A. (BADLY)? Well guess again, Lebron James. Now the public (Magic Johnson too) all believed by the end of the week AD was going to be a Laker, and please know that the Lakers did their best to make that happen. If you follow ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarski on Twitter then you would see that the Lakers literally would have traded their ENTIRE team away for AD. Some of the packages that Magic Johnson put together included Kyle Kuzma, Brandon Ingram, Rajon Rondo, Lonzo Ball, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, and anybody else on roster that can walk in a straight line, and let’s not omit that draft picks were included in the package too. The packages are absolutely insane and personally I would have taken it after about 10 minutes of thought, but I’m not a NBA General Manager so maybe I don't know anything.

The trade didn’t happen as we can see it’s Monday and AD is still a Pelican. Some say that some team officials were threatened and that they’d lose their jobs if they made the obvious trade for some taboo type of reasons but that is another story. Some others are saying that The Pelicans are holding off to see what the Celtics may have to offer — potentially Smart, Tatum, and some draft picks but I don't think any team would offer an entire young nucleus like the Lakers just did.

With AD being held off until this summer the Celtics are now eligible to obtain him where they were not able to before because of Kyrie Irving and the “Rose Rule”.

For those like myself who didn’t know what the “Rose Rule” was for the longest it is when a player who is still on their rookie contract gets a 30% max extension which is the most you can get on a Rookie deal extension. Now only one player per team with that “Rose Rule” type deal is allowed and with Kyrie Irving already in Boston having a “Rose Rule” type deal, Davis, would not be permitted on roster. But hold up, Kyrie’s deal expires this offseason and the Celtics are predicted to try to rework Kyrie’s deal. So Expect Danny Ainge, a “trade wizard” too try work some magic again. The Celtics and the Lakers are looking like the best landing spot for AD. Even though Davis and his father question Boston’s loyalty you can't deny the fact that they will offer him the best “Win Now and Get Paid” situation in the Eastern Conference.

I am excited to see what's going to happen this summer because this story is just the beginning, this is all but over. Until the offseason, we have the All-Star Break to look forward too and playoffs will be here before you know it.