Davis, Lakers courtship was straight out of the movies
The Lakers couldn’t dive into NBA free agency headfirst, because they had keep their powder dry and cap sheet clean for Kawhi Leonard. Once Leonard signed with the Clippers, the Lakers had to move fast, with an extremely limited number of players available, ultimately signing DeMarcus Cousins, Quinn Cook, Rajon Rondo, Danny Green, and L.A. retreads JaVale McGee and Kentavious CaldwellPope.
Anthony Davis didn’t feel any of the pressure on the
Lakers to quickly build a roster; in fact, he thought it was funny. In an interview Sunday with ESPN, Davis chuckled about the fact that “every 30 to 45 minutes, Rob (Pelinka) would be callin’ me.”
Pelinka had a couple hours to fill out the lineup next to Davis, who spent at least some of that time in a movie theater: “Rob would call me: “AD, what you think about him?” “All right, cool.” Right back, “AD, you know, this is what is going on with him.” “All right, cool. All right.” Sometimes I had to tell him, like, “Rob, I’m in the movies.” He’d be, like, “All right, well, call me as soon as you get out.”
Unspoken there: Were massive contracts (Green signed for two years, $30 million) on hold so Davis could finish watching Toy Story 4?
Also of note is that Leonard is as mysterious to the rest of the NBA as he is to the public. When Rachel Nichols asked Davis about recruiting the free agent, Davis sounded like a baffled user of a dating app: “I mean, Kawhi’s not a big recruiter guy, that’s what I heard. So I would send him texts every now and then, but then just be like, ‘Is this too much?’”
It apparently was.
Nichols put the screws to Davis, pointing out that the team called him a “pillar of the Lakers for a decade to come” but technically only has him under contract through this season. Davis stuck hard to agent Rich Paul’s insistence that he’ll hit free agency this summer, saying that “I’m just focused on this season. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I have one year here, so I’m going make the best of this year.”
The Lakers are too good for this to happen, but the funniest possible outcome certainly would involve Davis leaving in free agency.