“Lifted weight off the shoulders” Anthony Davis shares his honest feeling as Lakers retain each player after trade deadline
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Anthony Davis
This year the trade deadline had a lot of us on our feet, biting our nails anxiously waiting to hear news on our favorite team and player. Many teams had come forth with propositions ready to be brought into reality. We saw a few teams achieve the unthinkable which may have changed the fate of this season entirely.
Among these teams were the Los Angeles Lakers and Russell Westbrook. But it seems like the team was spared of the drastic changes any trade would have otherwise brought to their roster. However, now that the worst is over, they will have to make changes internally to move ahead and into the post-season as planned.
The Los Angeles Lakers are not on title contention levels
The Los Angeles Lakers have not been great at all this season despite having obvious leverage over most of the teams in the league in terms of experience. With a roster built around names like LeBron James, Russell Westbrook, Carmelo Anthony, and just for the sake of it Anthony Davis since he is also a very powerful force in the team, it is pretty unusual to be struggling to a point where questions your potential.
Earlier in the season, setbacks were caused due to multiple injuries. LeBron James had to be seated out for a hefty amount of time followed by Anthony Davis who had trouble with a knee injury. Of course, Covid-19 had a big toll on the roster after having a brief moment of a fully healthy team.
As Anthony Davis would later speak on, all these problems made it extremely hard for the coaching staff to figure out a system. And then there is Russell Westbrook who has not really lived up to the hype as much. He has had a solid season statistically but he has not been able to produce in the necessary areas.
Now based on these incidents, rumors circulated the league about trading Westbrook for a much more reliable option such as Damian Lillard who fits right in with any role, be it scoring or facilitating. This required the team to trade Talen Horton-Tucker, Malik Monk (or Austin Reaves), Kendrick Nunn, and obviously Brodie himself. Another scenario included Ben Simmons, Seth Curry, and future picks for the same group of players.
The Los Angeles Lakers escape the trade deadline
Even though a few of these trades would have worked out for the Lakers in the long run, no exchange took place before the deadline officially passed. One player, in particular, Anthony Davis gave out a sigh of relief by saying, “lifted weight off the shoulders. This is our team, let’s go.”
In an earlier interview, Anthony Davis along with LeBron James was very open and honest on their team’s situation going into All-Star weekend. Davis has been determined to stay together and work it out now that they have a proper roster in for the remainder of the season. They are expected to have more playing time together as a team which will allow the coaching to fix a good system with the players in rotation.
LeBron James on the other side says that their chances of winning the title this season are officially over. This was right after their loss to the defending champions the Milwaukee Bucks when he said the Lakers will not be on the same level as the Bucks are right now.
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Rakibul John Rodgers
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