If you are the Pelicans your job is to get the best deal period.
If in the end, that is the Lakers, so be it, but they shouldn’t just trade Davis to the Lakers because he wants to go.
Davis and Rich Paul are trying to dictate the trade market.
After agent Rich Paul of Klutch Sports told ESPN on Monday that he had informed the Pelicans that Davis wouldn’t sign an extension this summer and wanted a trade, multiple league sources expect the agent and star to soon deliver word throughout the league that Davis’ preferred destination is the Lakers and he’ll become a rental player until 2020 with a trade anywhere else.
It would be an attempt to depress offers in the marketplace, a way to perhaps make the Lakers’ trade package more appealing.
New Orleans is operating with an understanding that the Lakers’ best deadline offer could still be available to the Pelicans in the offseason — once the asset-rich Boston Celtics can become factors in the Davis discussions.
The reason Pelicans should wait is Boston going to make an offer with or without long term assurances, so there is no rush to accept a Lakers deal.
GM Danny Ainge is undeterred on making a trade for Davis, even without an assurance that he would agree to an extension with the Celtics, league sources said. Boston has been calling New Orleans for the past year-plus on Davis, and has gathered multiple first-round picks and young players to include in a package for him. Davis has a strong relationship with Irving, and Boston knows that trading for Davis would assuredly perish any possibility of Irving changing his mind and leaving the Celtics in free agency this summer.
Several teams told ESPN that they’re already weighing the possibility of making offers for Davis, including contenders who’d be willing to use Davis to chase a championship this season and perhaps recoup assets lost in a trade to New Orleans by flipping Davis in a trade after the season — or keeping him into the final year of his contract.
If you are a team in the running this year or next year, renting Davis not be a bad idea, that is why the Pelicans should sit tight and look for the Herschel Walker style deal if they can get it.
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