Anthony Davis is one of the game’s brightest young talents, and he gets paid like it, but in 2019, he may have turned down a $4.1 million trade bonus for some suspicious reasons.
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The last couple of years have been rough for Anthony Davis. He’s dealt with constant injuries which have kept him off the floor in crucial times.
Last season, he was injured for pivotal games in the Lakers first round series against the Phoenix Suns, and Los Angeles wound up losing the series 4-2.
This year, Davis found himself injured quite often again. He played in only 40 games and was out during the stretch when the Lakers needed him the most. In fact, over the last two years, Davis has only played in 76 out of 154 games. Davis’ health is crucial for the Lakers’ success and last season showed that in a very terrible manner.
LA missed the playoffs completely despite and MVP-like season from LeBron as he just couldn’t find any help outside. Russell Westbrook fit weird on the team, and all in all, the season was somewhat of a disaster for the team.
When he was on the court with LeBron though, the two were quite the duo, winning the Finals together in their first year together in the 2019-20 season.
One year after failing to make the Playoffs, the Lakers won it all.
A formidable pairing of LeBron James and Anthony Davis has the 2019-20 Los Angeles Lakers at number 57 on our Top 75 NBA Teams of All Time list. https://t.co/5bxOwKWEJf pic.twitter.com/4cJJC5kAuh
— SLAM (@SLAMonline) May 24, 2022
Anthony Davis turning down his $4.1 million trade kicker had NBA Twitter making wild conspiracies
When Anthony Davis was traded to the Lakers, a lot of technical stuff had to go down to make the trade possible. Adding Davis to the team would have pushed the Lakers above the cap, and so they had to do some maneuvering to make it work.
Davis agreed to waive his $4 million trade kicker, and the Lakers got a third team, the Washington Wizards, involved to make the trade go through as well. The moves left LA with $32 million to go pursue other free agents.
Davis and his agent Rich Paul claimed Davis waived the trade bonus to help the Lakers build a better team, but NBA Twitter started to come up with wild theories. Some suggested that it was to help LeBron James with Space Jam 2 while others claimed it was to keep the jersey number 23 which James may have wanted.
So Anthony Davis will waive his $4.1 million trade kicker to enable the Lakers to sign a max player in free agency and then will be paid $4.1 million for a cameo in Space Jam 2. Duh https://t.co/X2qsPqzvli
— Drew Shiller (@DrewShiller) June 20, 2019
Anthony Davis to LeBron on Space Jam 2 set after declining his $4M trade bonus https://t.co/FBeYoAftjK
— John Lage (@JohnLage1) June 27, 2019
LeBron is doing a better job as Lakers president than Magic ever did by convincing Anthony Davis to waive his trade bonus in exchange for #23 and a massive Space Jam 2 payday. pic.twitter.com/42ppiUVlMs
— Anthony Riccobono (@Tony_Riccobono) June 27, 2019
Anthony Davis:”Yo Bron, what’s it going to take to get that #23 from you”
LeBron: “waive that 4 million” pic.twitter.com/WA202F5eCt
— 🏀 (@laughsNball) June 27, 2019