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‘Anthony Davis sacrificed $4.1 million trade bonus because of Space Jam 2?: When NBA Twitter theorized how LeBron James orchestrated a masterplan to help with his movie

Ashish Priyadarshi
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Anthony Davis

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.

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.

Also Read: “Michael Jordan was always the talker and always backed it up”: Kenny Smith pays his respects to the Bulls GOAT for having the skills to back up his immense trash-talking

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.

Also Read: “Magic Johnson bought the LA Dodgers for an astonishing $2.5 billion!”: When a consortium spearheaded by the Lakers legend brought 7 times MLB champions for an eye-watering sum

About the author

Ashish Priyadarshi

Ashish Priyadarshi

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Ashish Priyadarshi is The SportsRush's content manager and editor. Ashish freelanced for 1 year in the NFL division before taking on an editorial role in the company. He then tacked on managing content while adding on a writing role in the NBA division. Ashish has been closely following the NFL and NBA since the 2012 season when the Patriots lost the Super Bowl and Derrick Rose was at the height of his powers. Since then, Ashish has focused on honing his knowledge for both leagues in, even writing crossover pieces. In his free time, Ashish is an avid basketball player, he loves to watch movies and TV shows, immersing himself in the cinematic world. Ashish studies computer science and data science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and would love to mesh his love for sports with his technical skills.

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