Anthony Davis on the Move? 7 Teams That Could Trade for AD | Warriors, Knicks, Bucks & MORE

Anthony Davis on the Move? 7 Teams That Could Trade for AD | Warriors, Knicks, Bucks & MORE

It’s open season in the NBA with the trade deadline quickly approaching. February 5th is just around the corner for that trade deadline. One of the names that keeps popping up on the rumor mill is Anthony Davis. As you’re looking at him in a season in Dallas that has not gone nearly as well as many thought that it would. AD dealing with injuries at various times this season that clearly has affected his play because when you look at his numbers, he’s played in only 11 games. Those 20 points per game that he’s averaging are the lowest of his career outside of his rookie year. Shooting over 50% from the field though and averaging a double double, but still not the 80 beast type numbers like we’ve seen in the past. Sam Quinn now rocking in with us as we look further into potential destinations for Anthony Davis. And Sam, let’s go through some of the landing spots that we think we might be able to see across the association. I’ll ask you how you feel and how he might fit and why that trade might make sense. Let’s start off in the East and look at the Atlanta Hawks. >> Yeah, you know, I think there’s an easy match here with Trey Young where you could swap two players that could make more sense on the other team. Dallas obviously needing guard help. Kyrie Irving’s been out all year. They could also just frankly use somebody a little bit younger. As for the Hawks, they’ve really leaned into this, you know, defense athleticism identity since Trey Young’s been out earlier in the season. I would worry a little bit about the shooting. I think if you’re the Hawks, if you do something like this, you maybe try to trade Chris Porzingis and his expiring contract, get another guard in there, get a little bit more shooting in there. But if you do that now, you’re looking at a really imposing sort of defense first team, somebody that could really challenge New York and Detroit to top the Eastern Conference. If you’re doing it with with Trey Young as the centerpiece, I think it’s an interesting idea. You talk about throwing in more picks. At that point, I probably start to get a little iffier. >> Yeah, Anthony Davis in Atlanta. That would be an interesting site to see. Another team we’re looking at is in the East, but it’s the best team in the East, the Pistons. Why them? >> Yeah, I I think it’s kind of ironic, right? They’re sort of Nico Harrison’s vision of the Mavericks, just younger and in the East. You know, Kade Cunningham is kind of Kyrie Irving in this scenario. They’re a huge team with Jaylen Duran and Isaiah Stewart in that front court. You slide Anthony Davis in there and it’s like boom. This is what the Mavericks were trying to be, you know, before the injuries kind of derailed that team. The fit is a little questionable to me just because they need shooting so badly. You know, they’re not a heavy three-point volume team. They’re already winning in the paint very, very comfortably. I think they’re going to look to guys Lowry Markin has been linked to them forever. You know, Trey Murphy’s a name that comes up for them. Michael Porter Jr. if they wanted to go a little bit cheaper, but if you’re trying to play bully ball, they do have all the tools for that. So, if they could do that, maybe find a way to add a little bit more shooting in there, that really would maybe take them over the top in the Eastern Conference, especially against the Knicks team that’s also pretty big. >> Yeah, an East that feels still wide open despite Detroit having the best record and being one of the biggest surprises we’ve seen around the association. Another big surprise you could say is the Raptors. They’re third in the East right now, record of 16- 11. Why would the Raptors be a potential landing spot for AD? >> Yeah, they just have a talent deficiency, right? You look at the way that they’re winning games. It’s not the starters. It’s that they have a great bench. They’re very, very deep. They’re not a topheavy team. They don’t really have star power. Scotty Barnes might make the All-Star team this year, but he’s not somebody that you’d expect to be consistently making all NBA teams and as Anthony Davis has in the past. The issue here, again, it’s a lot like Detroit. This is not a team that’s heavy on shooting. So, say you were to slide Anthony Davis in, you maybe trade RJ Barrett, Yakob Hurle, maybe Emanuel Quickley, some combination of those players. Scotty Barnes, not a great shooter, not too much shooting on this bench. You’d have to do a little bit more work. But I think we can be honest with ourselves and say if the Raptors have real playoff ambition, Scotty Barnes is not going to be the best player on a team that makes the finals, or at least the version of Scotty Barnes we’ve seen thus far. Maybe Anthony Davis could be. So why not take the talent swing and see if you can figure out the rest of the roster after the fact. >> Raptors are also a four and six over their last 10. So they’re in the midst of a little bit of a skid right now. Speaking of a skid, that is the definition of the Bulls because if things ended right now, they would not even be in the playin. So why would Chicago go after AD? >> Hometown sentiment. Uh I think that’s probably the prevailing idea right now. There had been some reporting that, you know, Indian or Chicago had looked at Ty at Josh Giddy as their version of Tyresese Hallebert and trying to build something similar to what the Pacers have built. Well, now they’re looking for their Pascal Seakkum. Anthony Davis isn’t really Pascal Seakum. He’s much more of a center. He’s not as good a shooter as Seakum’s been for Indiana. But if you were to add him, at least you could give yourself a defensive anchor and somebody you could give you a steady 20 25 points a game, which none of their players really have. You know, Kobe White has not been great since coming back. Josh Giddy isn’t that kind of player. He’s not a half court shot creator. He’s somebody who wants to play in transition. Do I think the Bulls should do this at this stage? No. It feels like the feel-good window is closed. But when it’s a hometown player who maybe wants to play for you and does fill a position of need, sure. It’s worth the conversation. >> Yeah. Uh the conversation when we go out west though, I’m intrigued by the Warriors and their fit. Is this a okay, you get rid of Jonathan Kaminga because you no longer want to have him in that marriage that just seems to not work for one reason or another. Why else would AD be a fit over there? >> Yeah. I mean, it’s kind of ironic, right? You go back to when the Warriors are doing their two timeline thing. They draft James Weisman effectively because they want Anthony Davis. They want vertical spacing. They want somebody they can throw lobs to. Obviously, Anthony Davis can fit in a switchheavy defense. The issue they’re going to have if they’re going to pursue him is matching salary. The way their books are set up, they’re very topheavy. Steph Curry making a supermax deal, Jimmy Butler making that same amount. It’s very, very hard for them to match money. You’d have to include Draymond Green and Jonathan Kaminga. Or you’d have to do something with Jimmy Butler as the centerpiece. That is not a very deep team. If you’re giving up one of your core players, you’d better hope that Anthony Davis is still the guy he was with the Lakers because if he’s not, you just don’t have it. I do think the fit makes sense. He They are one of the teams that I do think should seriously pursue him. They’re just going to have to be very very careful about the structure of that deal. >> Also wouldn’t really help their average age of that roster and bring in a 32year-old AD. But hey, that’s a conversation for another day. We head back to the East now with the team that just won that NBA Cup, the Knicks. So the Knicks, you say, might try to hit AD. They could land him and get even better. I think the season has started too well for them to feasibly get in the mix for now. Stuff can always change. But what is the question we’ve been asking about the Knicks basically since the beginning of last year? Can you defend well enough with Jaylen Brunson and Carl Anthony Towns on the court at the same time to win a championship? We don’t have a definitive answer to that, but what we can say is Anthony Davis is a much better defender than Carl Anthony Towns is. If you could make a swap like that, that solves your defense problems. Now, it brings up offensive problems because Anthony Davis can’t shoot like Carl Anthony Town. So, is Josh Hart suddenly a worse fit because he doesn’t have as much shooting around him? Do those bench guys make as much sense? Could you play Anthony Davis and Mitchell Robinson together? I mean, defensively, yes. On the glass, yes. The spacing gets a little bit questionable. So, it’s sort of trading one weakness for another. If the Knicks were to pursue it, it would be because they frankly view one weakness as a little bit more palatable than the other. But they’re start they’ve started off the season so well. They won the NBA Cup. Everything seems to be working out. I don’t think they’re going to pursue it now. But all it takes is a bad week, a bad month, and maybe you start to reconsider. >> Yeah, things can change very, very fast. Six teams we just ran through a potential trading landing landing spots for Anthony Davis. I think that covers it all. But then I remember one one team that makes a lot of sense, the Bucks. How can you talk about a trade deadline without maybe a swap for Giannis and AD? How do you like that one? >> Yeah, I think when you’re trading a star, the sort of team you want to trade with is the desperate one. So, if you’re Dallas, you’re looking at Milwaukee right now and saying they are so afraid of losing Giannis that they might be willing to do something that’s frankly reckless. They don’t have that many draft picks left. But you look at the Bucks picks in 2031 and 2032, you know, when they don’t control any of their draft picks beforehand and you say, “Wow, those are some potentially very, very interesting picks. Could we get Miles Turner, whose shooting would make a lot of sense next to Cooper Flag?” That’s a chance for you to fleece a team that’s negotiating from a position of weakness. Most of these teams pursuing Anthony Davis, they have the the leverage of saying, “You’re trying to rebuild Dallas. You’ve got the older injuryprone player. Why are we giving you a good package?” with the Bucks. They are so desperate that you might be able to milk them for everything that they’re worth. Would I do that if I were the Bucks? No. I think this era is over. I think they’re just, you know, stalling this inevitable trade of Giannis. But the Bucks aren’t thinking that way. If there’s a desperate suitor on the market, you always try to work with them. I think if the Mavericks can get the Bucks on the line, maybe they could get more for Anthony Davis than any of these other teams might offer. Sam, I know we just went through all these teams, but are we living in a world where we’re saying for sure you think that AD is going to be traded before the deadline? >> I don’t know about for sure just because the Mavericks have been playing well lately. They are at least now getting to a point where they can credibly tell Suitor, hey, maybe we will keep him. Maybe Kyrie Irving will come back. We’ll try to make a run through the playin. I just think cooler minds, cooler heads should prevail in Dallas and understand that Cooper Flag’s future is the priority. You have an 18-year-old now who’s frankly one of the best teenagers the NBA has ever seen. You got to be thinking, how can we position him to win in 2029, in 2030, winning in 2026 when the Thunder are this good? It’s unrealistic. My assumption is that with Mark Cuban taking on a bigger voice in that room, you know, with Nico Harrison gone, the cooler heads are going to prevail there and they’re going to say, “Look, it’s nice that we maybe could be a sneaky playin team, but that’s not the goal. The goal is to win a championship and the best way to do that is to get younger, get cheaper, rebuild around Cooper flag and make our run a few years from now. >> And that’s why we went through all those teams for all the folks to be able to reme remember and look back at. Sam Quinn, thank you so much. Appreciate as we look forward to the NBA tonight where there’s not a whole lot on the schedule, just two of them. Cavs and the Bulls, Grizz and Timberwolves. 8 Eastern start for both of those out in the association.

Sam Quinn joins CBS Sports HQ to break down 7 potential landing spots for the Mavericks big man.

(0:00) – Hawks
(2:02) – Pistons
(3:07) – Raptors
(4:12) – Bulls
(5:17) – Warriors
(6:32) – Knicks
(7:48) – Bucks

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