Anthony Davis still has the Lakers at the top of his list of preferred teams, does not see the Celtics as a place he’d stay ‘long-term’

If you’re a Lakers fan who thought you had heard the last of Anthony Davis after the trade deadline (at least until the end of the season), well, think again. Dwightmare 2.0 rolls on, whether you like it or not.

Davis is still in New Orleans, apparently still wants to play and is willing to make life as difficult as possible on everyone inside and outside of that city in the last couple months of his time there. He also reportedly especially wants to make things awkward in Boston, even if he denied that during All-Star Weekend.

According to Shams Charania of Stadium, Davis still isn’t interesting in playing for the Celtics long-term (which we knew). There is some new information to take into account now, though:

“Anthony Davis has to be open-minded to all 29 other teams. He does not have the control in this situation. That lies with the New Orleans Pelicans. They dictate where he’s going to end up this offseason... I’m still told his four-team list of the Lakers, Clippers, Knicks, (and) Bucks, still exists in that order, in that amount of teams, that group of teams. There are a couple other teams, undisclosed right now, that he would also consider.

“The Celtics, I’m told, are still not a long-term destination for him in his mind... Where the Celtics stand has not changed despite what Anthony Davis said over the weekend. Sources told me the Celtics are not (being considered) as far as the long-term play. But listen, it’s going to depend on exactly where the Pelicans want to trade him.”

The order in which he prefers his destination hasn’t been reported this definitively before. It may have been inferred by his and Rich Paul’s actions — and via leaks to the media — that the Lakers were at the top of his list, but this is the first time we’ve hear explicitly that there is an order of preference on the list he gave the Pelicans, and is about as clear as anything has been reported since the initial trade demand that got Davis fined.

The problem is that this doesn’t really change anything. And even if it might, I wouldn’t even blame people for rolling with the words that came directly from Davis himself last weekend instead of an anonymously sourced report. Davis has said precious little throughout this entire process, and the stuff he has said has come off as awkward and detached from the entire situation.

No, Anthony, they won’t care about your Instagram “thank you” to the city. In all honesty, very few people outside of New Orleans actually care whether or not you play the rest of this season. It probably wasn’t advisable for you to play those five minutes in the All-Star Game. We’re nearing the saturation point with this story, where each new detail will be met with rolled eyes, if that point hasn’t already passed.

The best path forward for Davis (and all of our sanities) is to probably just leave the team for a while, keep the leaks to an absolute minimum until the offseason, and see how things look come this summer. The more stuff like this that gets leaked over the next couple months, and the more difficult Davis makes things in the meantime, the less likely an already frustrated Pelicans front office and owner in will be to send him to any of his preferred destinations — let alone the team at the top of his list.

Davis made this bed for himself when he demanded a trade. New Orleans then stomped all over that bed with muddy shoes by keeping him through the deadline. Now, both sides have to find some way to not kill each other over the next couple months. Please, everyone involved, just leave this be for a little while. Stop leaking updates every ten minutes.

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