Anthony Davis claims he didn’t say he’d consider going to Chicago in free agency, even though there’s video of him saying pretty much exactly that

Monday evening, Anthony Davis caused a bit of a stir when video surfaced of him not outright ruling out the Chicago Bulls as an option for him in free agency. Tuesday morning, he was asked about that exchange and said he never said what he pretty much said in the video.

Semantically, he’s right, and we’ll get to this, but man, as my wife tells me the morning after a party in which I did something stupid after a couple adult beverages, “Anthony, there’s video.”

First, for the sake of clarity, here is said video from Monday:

And here’s the actual quote if you can’t watch the video at work:

“Obviously there is nothing like playing at home,” Davis said. “I don’t know. I am a free agent next year... We’ll see. It’s a possibility.”

A group of reporters asked Davis about that video and his response. Davis went with the “deny ‘til you die” strategy:

In case you can’t watch that, here’s what Davis says, when first asked about his consideration of Chicago:

“I didn’t say I’d consider anything.”

Okay, so what did you say?

“I said that I’m focused on a championship with the Lakers. And, of course everyone knows that that I’m going to be a free agent next year, and then I said, ‘We’ll see where it goes.’”

Again, here’s yesterday’s video:

Look, this was always a non-story. Davis answered a question from a bunch of kids about the possibility of something happening down the line. Davis said what he had to in that moment so as not to, a) limit his options this summer and, b) not piss off the city he grew up in literally right before he plays a game there.

And that’s fine! In that context, that was a perfectly okay thing to do!

But then pissing on everyone’s head and calling it rain is what breathes new life into what should have been a dead story. And this kind of goes back to his handling of things in New Orleans.

Remember when he wore the “That’s All Folks!” shirt to his final game with the Pelicans and then made the excuse that he doesn’t dress himself? The first half of that sentence is a pretty funny joke that highlighted (and predicted, mind you) the likely outcome of last summer. The second half of that sentence is a really lame excuse that was so obviously bad it challenged the intelligence of anyone paying attention.

That’s what this is. There’s video of Davis here, and while he doesn’t say exactly what it was that he is denying having said today, the sentiment was there in an altogether innocent fashion that he could have simply acknowledged today.

Anywho, the Lakers play in seven hours or so, and Davis is almost certainly not going to play in Chicago next season. We can all move on, but Davis has to learn how to handle these things better. It won’t be the last time this season he’s asked to address this, especially since it’s now first cropped up (somehow) only six games in.

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