{"id":706341,"date":"2026-04-09T04:06:35","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T04:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/706341\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T04:06:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T04:06:35","slug":"anthony-davis-vents-about-leaving-the-lakers-during-podcast-appearance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/706341\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthony Davis vents about leaving the Lakers during podcast appearance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although Anthony Davis was, at times, maligned by Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> fans, his contributions to the team during his time with it were unmistakable. He arrived in L.A. in the summer of 2019, and the Lakers promptly won the NBA championship during his first season with them.<\/p>\n

The rest of his time there with LeBron James was seen as lackluster, and by the start of last season, there was a sense that his partnership with the league’s all-time leading career scorer had gone stale. Fourteen months ago, Davis was sent to the Dallas Mavericks<\/a> in the trade of a lifetime that brought Luka Doncic to the Purple and Gold.<\/p>\n

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Davis was a guest on “The Draymond Green Show”<\/a> recently, and he recalled how he felt and reacted when he heard the news on that memorable Saturday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo when he [Rich Paul] said \u2018traded to Dallas\u2019, I was like, \u2018Get the [expletive] out of here.\u2019 And I said, \u2018Who the [expletive] they going to trade me for? Luka?\u2019 Who else can you trade me for on that team?\u2019 Mind you, they just went to the Finals.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd there was never no discussion about \u2018man we might get AD out of here\u2019, it was nothing. He was like, \u2018They traded you for Luka.\u2019 I\u2019m like, \u2018Rich, shut the hell up. Like what do you want?\u2019 I\u2019m really thinking he\u2019s playing. I\u2019m really thinking he\u2019s just playing. And he was like, \u2018Man, I swear.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The negotiations that led to that trade were kept a secret for several weeks until the deal was executed. Davis vented about how he felt he deserved a better exit from Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the business standpoint, I can\u2019t be mad. But, why? I just couldn’t fathom, I couldn’t understand it. And nobody told me nothing. Nobody said a thing to me. So you just catch me off guard, like, yeah, \u2018You traded to Dallas.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s what I couldn’t get over and I still can’t get over. I think I deserved much more respect than that. All the time I’ve been here \u2014 [expletive], I was there six years, \u2014 all the time I’ve been there and all the time, we won a championship, all this stuff and I can’t get a phone call or a text to tell me, \u2018Look, this is what we’re thinking.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

That trade hasn’t exactly worked out well for Dallas. In his first game with Dallas, the injury-prone Davis went down with a strained adductor that kept him out for 18 games. Shortly afterward, star guard Kyrie Irving, who was supposed to form a new dynamic duo with Davis, tore his ACL, and he has yet to play since.<\/p>\n

The 10-time All-Star big man has only played in 20 games this season due to a detached retina and a hand injury. He was traded to the Washington Wizards on Feb. 5, while the Mavericks are about to miss the playoffs for the second year in a row.<\/p>\n

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Even though Doncic recently suffered a hamstring strain that could keep him out for the rest of this season and the playoffs, his arrival has given the Lakers new life as an organization, not to mention a renewed hope for another NBA championship in the not-too-distant future. But their fans still owe a debt of gratitude to Davis for helping to resurrect Lakers mystique not too long ago.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: Anthony Davis vents about leaving the Lakers during podcast appearance<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Although Anthony Davis was, at times, maligned by Los Angeles Lakers fans, his contributions to the team during…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":706342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[495,7,149,200,967,185,150,368,6,3220,468],"class_list":{"0":"post-706341","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-anthony-davis","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-dallas-mavericks","11":"tag-draymond-green","12":"tag-kyrie-irving","13":"tag-lebron-james","14":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","15":"tag-luka-doncic","16":"tag-nba","17":"tag-nba-championship","18":"tag-washington-wizards"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116372780572050296","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=706341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/706342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}