OKC Thunder: Pelicans floor spacers offer intriguing deadline options

Closing in on the NBA February 7, trade deadline TI dives into each team with a view of their top trade assets and how they fit into the OKC Thunder scheme.

Thunderous Intentions will deliver trade primers on each club highlighting their current situation, roster needs and who their likely trade assets will be. We’ll examine the top two assets in terms of how they may or may not fit into the OKC Thunder plans and whether those players would be worthwhile pursuing at the deadline (or later in possible buyout situations).

The first team up isn’t typical of how we’ll handle the majority of these primers given recent events. Therefore, in looking at their current situation it’s impossible to simply stick to x’s and o’s since what occurs with the Pelicans has far reaching effects across the Association. Well, that and I’m in a bit of a mood over the dynamics of how this situation has played out.

Anthony Davis announcement upends NBA:

This week began with a bang as Anthony Davis and his team publicly announced he won’t sign the five year designated player extension (estimated worth of $240 million) and wants out of New Orleans. This in itself wasn’t necessarily the big news, rather the manner in which his message was delivered became the focus of water cooler conversation and the NBA media world in general.

In essence, Rich Paul and his Klutch Sports Group tried to strong arm the Pelicans into forcing a trade to the Lakers via the public announcement. This because the only reason Davis and his group have to go public is to make the point he’d rather be in Los Angeles than in Boston or anywhere else for that matter. Why else issue a public statement and do it now?

As per Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN:

"Teams interested in trading for Davis — including the Boston Celtics — are in full fact-finding mode, and the intel coming back is this, sources tell ESPN: Davis’ plan is to treat any trade destination as a one-year stop — except, of course, the Lakers. Teams are learning that Davis’ stated intention will be to play the season elsewhere if traded outside of the Lakers, but move to the Lakers as a free agent in 2020."

In truth, the minute Davis changed agent representation to align with LeBron James best friend Rich Paul and Klutch Sports the presumption was this was the direction the Davis saga was headed.

Shortly after the announcement, the Pelicans fired back releasing a statement requesting the league follow up by investigating tampering as per Bleacher Report.

"Relative to specific talks of a trade, we will do this on our terms and our timeline. One that makes the most sense for our team and it will not be dictated by those outside of our organization. We have also requested the League to strictly enforce the tampering rules associated with this transaction.”"

Since then the league has fined Davis $50,000 for the public announcement which directly goes against what is allowable in the Collective Bargaining Agreement.

The other elephant in the room is LeBron James has been active in social media and press sound bites stating his interest in Davis and sending cryptic messages to Kyrie Irving which has Celtics fans worried it could translate into James trying to lure Kyrie to LA too.

Prior to this week, it was assumed Kyrie Irving was a lock to return to the Celtics – he said as much early this season to the assembled masses at TD Garden. But- not so fast. After his recent conversation with LeBron Jame and the above social media message, Davis trade request and Thursday’s trade of Porzingis out of New York suddenly Irving isn’t quite as committed to re-signing. As of February 1, the narrative has changed demonstratively: (warning NFWE included in the following tweet).