It finally happened! David Griffin and the New Orleans Pelicans just shipped Anthony Davis to the Lakers in exchange for a ton of assets.
Holy cow. It’s here. Today is finally the day. David Griffin did what he was brought to the New Orleans Pelicans to do and found the winning trade for the Anthony Davis Sweepstakes. Likely to the surprise of some, the Los Angeles Lakers actually wound up being the winning team despite all of the drama between these two franchises earlier in the year.
As Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reported first, the AD haul is as follows:
The Pelicans have agreed to a deal to trade Anthony Davis to the Lakers for Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, Josh Hart, and three first-round picks – including the No. 4 overall in 2019 Draft, league sources tell ESPN.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 15, 2019
It’s not quite the return Griffin was rumored to be after a few days ago since there’s no player here that’s already been an All-Star, however Lonzo Ball and Brandon Ingram both have the potential to get there someday. Josh Hart is by no means a throw-in either, as he’ll likely see heavy minutes off of the bench for the New Orleans Pelicans.
We’re still waiting for details on what a few of these draft picks will be, but getting three first round picks is enormous for the Pelicans. One of them is the #4 pick in the upcoming NBA Draft on Thursday, which could either be used to draft another young stud of a prospect to the roster, or to use as a trade chip to pick up another more established player that could be on the trade block elsewhere.
The Boston Celtics apparently ended up not being willing to take the risk of a one year rental on Davis and instead opted to keep their core of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown together. In the wake of Kyrie Irving likely leaving the team, this makes sense. They’re building for the future instead of potentially throwing everything away for a trial run of AD.
Anthony Davis got what he wanted and now gets to team up with LeBron James in Hollywood. This won’t sit well with some jaded fans that didn’t want to give the Lakers win, but rest assured that this haul of assets returned to the New Orleans Pelicans is going to set them up for a long time to come.
As more details unfold about the New Orleans Pelicans/Anthony Davis trade, we’ll fill you in. Expect plenty of analysis regarding this situation on Pelican Debrief over the next several days.