It looks increasingly like the Pelicans have no real intention of dealing with the Lakers ahead of tomorrow’s trade deadline. The Lakers have made their whole damn team available in offers for Anthony Davis, and the Pelicans apparently haven’t made any concrete counteroffers, and the only observable effect of all this chatter and speculation has been the Lakers’ morale going completely to shit, and the team suffering one of the worst losses in franchise history.
It turns out that might’ve been by design! You will recall, there was quite the scandal surrounding tampering-adjacent comments made by LeBron James back in December. Then, in January, the Pelicans called down the thunder on their own player, for making his trade request public, via his agent. The Pelicans have not appreciated what they’ve seen as an effort, led by LeBron, Magic, and agent Rich Paul, to engineer Davis’s move from New Orleans to Los Angeles. ESPN reporter Brian Windhorst, appearing Wednesday on The Jump , told Rachel Nichols that the Pelicans, soaked in bitterness after the Lakers’ tampering campaign, have used these trade negotiations as a way of getting sweet, sweet revenge:
Whatever about the Pelicans. They get the laugh now but does this move them forward? What’s the probability of the Pelicans getting better and challenging for a championship vs. the Lakers with LeBron getting better and challenging?
They’re likely to get a better offer from the Celtics in the summer. In fact, they’re likely to get a better offer from a lot of teams in the summer.
What never made sense from the perspective of the Pelicans was taking all the players the Lakers had off their hands to just create Lakers South, with no Lebron, aka a middle of the road team with almost no future above like fifth in the conference.
They did the right thing. AD is a top five player in the League. You wait and get a better deal. Good luck to James getting other guys to come to LA now, too. I think this was pretty damaging to his LA stay. Coulda been tearing it up next to Simmons and Embiid with a clear path to the Finals again. Instead he’s going to barely make the playoffs in 2019 and probably won’t get close to reeling in Golden State in 2020 either. He’ll still have at least two more years to wait before playing with Bronny after that, too.
Lebron James may never win another Championship as a player again.
It’s honestly refreshing to have so many contenders in the East now. In the last 10-12 years I think the most we had was 3 in one season. It would be 5 now if Oladipo hadn’t gotten injured.
They won’t beat the Warriors but at least it’s something different.
The Warriors might be beatable this year. It takes a lot of fire to win three in a row and I think they’re going to have to beat some really good teams this year that play defense.
Sixers looked long, athletic, and in spurts really dominant tonight. Looking forward to Sunday afternoon. I hope Embiid feels better by then and no one else gets sick.
So Russ Westbrook just pulled a nigh-impossible feat and broke a Wilt Record as he recorded his 10th straight Triple Double tonight. Also helped his buddy Paul George to his own triple-double as they take down the Trailblazers.
