Anthony Davis’ Likeliest Trade Destination If Lakers Lose To Nuggets

The Los Angeles Lakers defeated the New Orleans Pelicans on Tuesday night to earn another shot at the Denver Nuggets in this year’s playoffs.

Last season, these two teams met in the Western Conference Finals. Denver earned a clean sweep over L.A., before going on to win the NBA championship.

This year Anthony Davis and Co. will aim to right that wrong – with very serious stakes on the line.

LeBron James obviously doesn’t have a ton of time left in the league, and many have argued that the Lakers have to start planning for life without him.

Davis was once viewed as the cornerstone the franchise would build around post-James, but he has since proven himself to be more of a secondary superstar than primary one.

If the Lakers fall to the Nuggets, Davis could be traded. And according to one NBA exec, there is one particular squad that is the frontrunner for his services.

“When you look at it, if you’re serious about trading Davis at some point then you need to accomplish a few things,” a general manager told NBA insider Sean Deveney.

“You have to get him somewhere he wants to be. He wants to be a Laker. So if you trade him, you have to do right by him, send him to a good team in a good market, you don’t want to burn any bridges with (Klutch Sports, Davis’s representatives). You need a team willing to take on his money. Because it’s a lot. And you need a team who can load you up with draft picks.”

There is a single squad that checks all those boxes.

“There’s really one team that fits all of those, and that’s the [New York] Knicks,” he continued.

“It would not be hard to make a deal work there. You can line up the salaries. You can package a ton of picks. You can throw in a young player. You can take on a salary the Lakers might not want. I mean, he is one player and you can get a huge haul here.”

This isn’t the first time Davis has been linked to the Knicks.

Is a stint in the Big Apple in his future? Time will tell.