Anthony Davis is selling his house in Westlake Village, which probably isn’t that big of a deal

There hasn’t been a lot of news about the Los Angeles Lakers since the NBA’s coronavirus suspension, so this qualifies as a noteworthy update: Anthony Davis is putting his home in Westlake Village on the market, which is sure to lead to a fair amount of speculation about his intentions for doing so.

Neal J. Leitereg of the L.A. Times has the details:

The contemporary Mediterranean mansion sits behind gates with a guesthouse and a $1-million infinity-edge swimming pool complete with dual waterslides, a baja deck and a spa. But perhaps even more impressive: an attached basketball gymnasium featuring its own viewing box.

Custom-built in 1996 and later expanded, the roughly 16,000-square-foot house features a two-story entry with a curved staircase, a wood-paneled office and a movie theater. The kitchen is equipped with two islands. There are five bedrooms and seven bathrooms including a multi-room master suite.

Seriously, this house looks incredible, for those of you that want to take a look. Davis bought it in 2018 for a reported $7.5 million.

Now, the NBA playoffs were supposed to start today, but with no basketball to talk about, this decision from Davis may lead to a few debate show discussions about what this all means, whether it indicates Davis is leaving the Lakers, or anything like that. Before things get to that point, here are a couple reasons why it’s probably not that big of a deal.

Davis already has another house closer to where he works

Well, okay, Davis doesn’t own this one, but TMZ reported shortly after Davis joined the Lakers that he would be renting a $14 million house in Bel-Air. So not only was Davis already living elsewhere, but he was living somewhere that is already closer to Staples Center and the Lakers’ practice facility in El Segundo by about 20-30 minutes (according to Google Maps) without traffic (meaning he’s saving even more time on game days).

For a guy who admitted during an early season interview that he didn’t know what FasTrak was, traffic may have hit harder than expected.

And this is admittedly cynical context, but when you factor in that the housing market may struggle in the aftermath of this social and economic crisis, if Davis was going to sell, it sort of makes sense for him to do it now.

Davis has been widely expected to stay with the Lakers for the entire time he’s been here

Davis has said he’s given “zero thought” to what he’ll do in free agency this summer, and while that can’t possibly be true, even if it is, there have been tons of indications that he’s going to stay in L.A., even if he declined to sign an extension for financial reasons that seemed more obvious before this pandemic altered (among many other more important things) the NBA salary cap.

For one thing, Davis fought tooth and nail to actually end up in Los Angeles this summer, and the team has done everything it can since acquiring him to give him agency over the roster and make him feel like an equal, superstar partner to LeBron James rather than just another member of the supporting cast. Plus, the team has been really good since Davis’ arrival — the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference before the current stoppage — so in addition to all the off-court reasons why it would make sense for Davis to stay in Los Angeles, the on-court case is pretty compelling too.

But you don’t have to take my word for it. Just this week, it was reported that case appears to be going to so well that people around the league are saying that the Lakers’ work to keep Davis is “pretty much done.” Outside of a verbal commitment from Davis himself, reasons for optimism don’t get phrased much more concretely than that.

Look, keeping Davis in free agency is obviously not the most important thing in the world right now, but as long as this is a Lakers website, we’re gonna keep covering stuff that impacts the Lakers (and outlining what stuff doesn’t really seem to). This would seem to fall in the latter category, which is worth pointing out before it gets used to stir up some disingenuous controversy.

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