The clock is ticking until next summer when the New Orleans Pelicans can offer superstar center Anthony Davis a super-max contract extension -- in the likely event he makes an All-NBA team for the 2018-19 season and is eligible for such a deal.
That contract would be worth $235 million over five years, so Davis would be giving up a lot of money by turning it down. But if he accepts, he'd have to prolong his career in New Orleans, where he's unlikely to ever make a deep playoff run.
Davis declining that extension would pretty much force the Pelicans to trade him, and ESPN's Zach Lowe and Adrian Wojnarowski recently talked about that scenario in a recent video segment.
"If he says no to that, the entire league is now in disarray because anyone with trade assets, including LeBron's team, including a very good Boston team, will be doing everything it can to get Anthony Davis," Lowe said. "It's the biggest story in the league. The entire landscape could change based on what he does."
The Boston Celtics have been linked to Davis in trade rumors for a while, and Wojnarowski shed some light on that during this segment.
"Boston has been hawking Anthony Davis for years," Wojnarowski said. "They always hoped that it would be, whether it's the end of this season or the beginning of next before the trade deadline, that they would gather up all those assets, all those picks Danny Ainge has and young players, and they'd be the team to be able to get Anthony Davis. But now you have L.A. and if they get shut out in free agency, they're going to have to take all their young players to try to use them to get Anthony Davis."
You can watch the entire exchange between Wojnarowski and Lowe in the video below.
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Few players have the ability to change the balance of power in the NBA with their free-agent decision, but Davis certainly fits in that group. Davis is averaging 28 points, 12.4 rebounds and 2.8 blocks per game while shooting 50.3 percent from the field this season. The 25-year-old center is a generational talent.
The competition for him, if he ever becomes available for trade, will be fierce. The Celtics likely have the most to offer, and it's up to president of basketball operatons Danny Ainge to find the right price without completely gutting the enormous depth he's built for Boston's current roster.
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