Anthony Davis, during The Draymond Green Show has opened up about his departure from the New Orleans Pelicans, revealing how things could have taken a completely different direction. According to Davis, if New Orleans had selected Ja Morant with the No. 1 pick in the 2019 NBA Draft instead of Zion Williamson, he would probably still be with the Pelicans today.<\/p>\n
Davis recalled discussing the possibility directly with then-general manager David Griffin: \u201cI told David Griffin, \u2018If you can get Ja Morant at one, then we\u2019ve got a real conversation going on. Because I know how it\u2019s going to help our team with Jrue Holiday. If Jrue has to handle the ball, he loves to get people involved, but we want Jrue to score. Now we\u2019d have somebody else who can do that, who can also create for others.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Williamson\u2019s arrival raised doubts for Davis about how the two would fit together: \u201cHe told me he couldn\u2019t. He had to take Zion. And at the time, I just couldn\u2019t see how me and Zion would work. We played the same position. At that point, I was only playing the four. I had never been the five. Was Zion going to play the three? Then you had Jrue at the two and we had just brought in Julius Randle. Were you going to bench Julius? Who was getting benched? You\u2019re not going to bench your No. 1 pick.\u201d<\/p>\n
Davis also explained that he had always imagined ending his career in New Orleans before their differences over the team\u2019s goals led to a breakup: \u201cI always thought I was going to finish in New Orleans, right? Start in New Orleans, finish in New Orleans, and never go anywhere. And when we just didn\u2019t align on our goals as far as winning, it took a bad turn. We had to do some things, had to get loud in the media, and I had to go out and be the villain. I think now people are starting to see and understand a little bit, but they didn\u2019t see it at the time, seven years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The former Pelicans star explained how New Orleans\u2019 decision to select Zion Williamson in the 2019 Draft contributed to changing his relationship with the franchise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":371870,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_spbk_hide_featured":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[399],"tags":[],"rumors":[],"typology":[],"posizionamento":[],"class_list":["post-508996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba"],"yoast_head":"\n