When the Lakers traded Luka Doncic for Anthony Davis, the deal was framed around size and two-way dominance. A move toward a bigger, more physical frontcourt that could match up with the league’s top centers.
On the Washington Wizards’ Numbers on the Board podcast, Davis revealed that the very plan the trade was built on is what broke him down physically and mentally during his time in Los Angeles.
“The strength training I was doing because I knew I was playing center, like I’m going against Joel Embiid and Jokic,” Davis said. “I’ve always played like 250, 255. And that year I had got to like 265 and it was like I didn’t like it. It was actually probably like 268 and I didn’t like it. I’m like, bro, I can’t play like this. I feel heavy.”
Davis said he tried cutting weight mid-season, but doing so while still playing heavy minutes at center against the league’s biggest bodies proved unworkable.
The frustration eventually turned into a direct request to the front office. “That’s when I went and was like, hey man, I want another big and all this stuff, and you know, it just didn’t happen, whatever,” Davis said.
According to reports, that ask came roughly two weeks before the 2025 trade deadline, when Davis pushed the Lakers to acquire a true center so he could slide back to his more natural power forward spot.
Instead of landing a center, the Lakers ultimately traded Davis himself to Dallas as part of the Doncic deal.
Davis carried that extra bulk with him even after the trade. He reported to Mavericks training camp last fall at 268 pounds, 15 pounds heavier than the season before, a number that alarmed Dallas fans before he’d played a single game.
He initially defended the weight as intentional. He said he preferred starting heavy and trimming down over the course of the year rather than starting light and shrinking further.
The results didn’t back that plan up right away. An early calf strain limited him, and only after dropping weight during the season did Davis look like his usual two-way self again, highlighted by a 32-point, 13-rebound outing against Jokic and the Nuggets in December.
Now with Washington, Davis is back in a frontcourt that doesn’t ask him to single-handedly match size with Embiid and Jokic every night. “Now that I’m able to, like you guys will see, like when you put me against another, alongside another big man, it’s like it’s a different, you know, ball game for me,” Davis said.
The Lakers never gave him the center partner he’d asked for, and he was left defending bigger bodies alone, adding weight his own body made clear it didn’t want.