Thepeelsessions":2xmrnt0g said:
knownone":2xmrnt0g said:
Thepeelsessions":2xmrnt0g said:
And the narrative about New Orleans "the first 7 years" of Anthony Davis' career is false. Sure, they could've done a better job of building around him, but a lot of it falls on Davis himself. He's not a winner. He doesn't have that alpha killer instinct. He had some decent players around, but he's the one who let Draymond Green dominate him in both the 2014 playoffs and last year. He's a far superior player, but didn't step up. He never embraced being the face of the franchise. A lot of New Orleans' problems over the time he's been there can be put in Davis' shoulders, no matter how unpopular that may seem.
Davis averaged 28PPG / 15TRB / 2STL / 2BLK against the Warriors last year. What more do you want from the guy?
It's not about stats. Everybody knows he puts up big numbers. His attitude is the problem. He's made made it clear he doesn't want to work to help build NO into a contender. And he's pretty much made it clear that he wants to go to the bright lights of LA to ride the jock of LeBron and the proverbial jock of his agent, Rich Paul.
He didn't need to come out and make good stupid test request public. The Pelicans were still in the playoff hunt at the all-star break when the news broke. He threw a wrench in that team and derailed the rest of the season. It was a punk move. And honestly, I'd love to see New Orleans maximize all this leverage they have, not that they hold the right to draft Williamson. That opens the door to get basically anything they want for Davis in a trade. That will give them a promising future to build young, with tons of future draft capital and young, cheap, up and coming talent.
Here's the thing, I don't disagree with you on his attitude. He could have and should have handled things better.
However, you can't ignore the fact that the Pelicans have been a disaster of a franchise since drafting Davis. Davis has played with 2 other all-stars in his 7 years in the league. One of those players, Boogie Cousins, played 1 year with Davis and you really couldn't play them together effectively because they play the same position. The other guy is Jrue Holiday, he's made the all-star team once in his 10 year career. That's the cream of the crop for Davis's supporting cast in 7 years in the league.
Their front office signed bench rotation players Solomon Hill, and Omer Asik to massive contracts. And they traded their best young asset in his rookie season to rent Cousins for a year. They went full win now mode by trading all of their picks and young assets while signing guys who were not only bad roster fits... they weren't even good players.
Davis and his representatives acted like entitled morons with how they tried to force a trade. But you can't argue that he's in the wrong for wanting out of NOLA. Davis is one of the 3 most talented players in the league and they've only made the playoffs twice. That's not a player issue.
