Golden State made a bid for Davis’ longtime co-star.
Los Angeles Lakers All-NBA Second Team center Anthony Davis has finally spoken out about the Golden State Warriors’ reported trade interest in All-NBA Third Team forward LeBron James last season, per Jovan Buha of The Athletic.
Per an ESPN report, the Warriors reportedly reached out to Lakers management about acquiring the 20-time All-Star forward, who remains one of the league’s best offensive players even as its absolute oldest active player. James will turn 40 in December, amidst his record-tying 22nd NBA season.
“I wasn’t on social media at the time, so I didn’t see (it),” Davis told Buha of the moment the report surfaced. “I heard about it. How did I hear about that? I don’t even remember. I mean, it was fucking national news. I can’t remember how I exactly heard about it. I think maybe my dad called me. Something like that. But I don’t think it affected anybody. I mean, I think that might be the first time ever that he’s been in trade talks in his career. He’s kind of seen everything, so I don’t think that affected him. That didn’t affect our team. But it was definitely strange to hear in the sense of like, the first time he’s ever been talked about in a trade before, you know what I’m saying? But it didn’t happen so…”
James would have joined a Warriors core of future Hall of Famers Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green against whom he had faced off in five epic playoff series while on the Cleveland Cavaliers and later the Lakers, going 2-3 across those encounters. The 6-foot-9 superstar eventually became friends with Curry and Green when their bitter rivalry thawed, but throughout their four consecutive NBA Finals meetings, from the 2015 Finals to the 2018 iteration, there was no love lost.
On Tuesday night, James and Davis’ Lakers will square off against a similarly in-flux Golden State club that seems to have fallen off mightily from its most recent title, in 2022. Last season, the Warriors went 46-36 last year, finishing with the No. 10 seed in the Western Conference Finals and failing to survive their first play-in tournament game. The Lakers went 47-35 but won their first play-in tournament matchup, against the New Orleans Pelicans in an upset, and did make the playoffs — although they were quickly ousted by the Denver Nuggets in the first round.
