Breathe freely, New Orleans Pelicans peeps. Your team isn’t on the verge of trading Anthony Davis anywhere.
And, yes, “anywhere” includes the Boston Celtics.
Here’s what ESPN.com’s Adrian Wojnarowski had to say on the matter during an appearance on The Dan Le Batard Show (h/t Clutch Points’ Andrew Salmi):
“No. I mean, New Orleans has no intention of trading Anthony Davis. Listen, every team in the league would love to have Anthony Davis. Boston is uniquely positioned in that they have draft picks, young players and all the things that, if a team was going to trade Anthony Davis, all the things that you’d want,” Wojnarowski said on Wednesday. “But they’re not trading Anthony Davis.”
If you’re sensing irony here, you’re alone. Though the Davis-to-Boston train has been off the rails for a while, it was Woj’s own piece from December that had everybody buzzing again. Granted, he made it clear in the article that no trade was imminent, but he helped fan the flames of a fire he’s now putting out.
And make no mistake, he’s not wrong. The Pelicans aren’t trading Anthony Davis. Not this season. They have him under contract through 2019-20 (2020-21). They could play out this season and then two more without him having control of his own destiny if they wanted.
These things don’t work like that, of course. If the Pelicans are unable to re-sign DeMarcus Cousins this summer or establish themselves as an up-and-coming threat in the Western Conference by sometime next season, they’ll have to think about moving Davis. Maybe it won’t be by next February’s trade, but it’ll have to be by the summer of 2019, when he’ll still have a full year left on his deal before free agency.
Until then, any and all Davis conspiracy theories are but a dream deferred. And yes, Boston Celtics fans, this refers to ya’ll, too.
