Woj: Anthony Davis wants New Orleans Pelicans to trade him

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Five-time NBA All-Star forward Anthony Davis will not resign and has requested a trade, his agent Rich Paul notified the New Orleans Pelicans, reported ESPN.

"Anthony wants to be traded to a team that allows him a chance to win consistently and compete for a championship," Paul told ESPN. As the league's best power forward and one of the top five players, Davis is eligible to sign a five-year, 240 million U.S. dollars supermax extension with New Orleans in 2019 summer. If he leaves, he will at least lose tens of millions in income, to say the least.

Meanwhile, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium, Davis already talked to talked to his teammates before making this decision.

Anthony Davis #23 of the New Orleans Pelicans blocks a shot by Lonzo Ball of the Los Angeles Lakers in the game. /VCG Photo

The timing of Davis making the request is very tricky since it's less than two weeks from the trade deadline of the 2018-19 NBA regular season. Moreover, the season already finished over half and all teams are counting their chips before making the final adjustments to their franchise.

The Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics should the happiest to hear the news. Of all the teams interested in Davis (pretty much every team in NBA), the two have the best leverage: The Lakers hold a lot of one-year contracts and they have LeBron James, who already said that he would be happy to work with Davis.

Davis of the Pelicans dunks in the game. /VCG Photo

By contrast, the Celtics can offer multiple young talents and future draft picks, both are very tempting for the Pelicans. Both teams so far have not met people's expectations for them and both needed to find the second historic star player for James and Kyrie Irving though it would be only natural to assume that New Orleans will not let Davis go easily.

Selected by the Pelicans with the first overall pick in the 2012 NBA Draft, Davis showed the league his dominance in both offense and defense. So far in this season, he could drop 29.3 points, 13.3 rebounds, 4.4 assists and 2.6 blocks per game.