Last week, Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr singled out Los Angeles Lakers star Anthony Davis for forcing a trade from his former team, the New Orleans Pelicans.
As any good teammate would do, Lakers veteran Jared Dudley came to Davis’ support when he spoke with Ethan Strauss of The Athletic.
“You know what, I am a huge Steve Kerr fan,” Dudley said. “Obviously, he traded for me. I was in Phoenix with the same agent (Mark Bartelstein). That’s the only time I think I’ve disagreed with him. Because, why can’t a player ask out of his contract if what you sold him on changed? Happens all the time. Hey, we want to win, but now we’re going to rebuild. Vice-versa where a guy gets traded after a year when there are three years left on his contract. And so why can a team be able to trade but a player can’t ask for a trade?
“Now, the only difference of this is the perception. Paul George asks for a trade, but no one knows about it. But Anthony Davis comes out and because it’s public, now he’s getting killed, just because it’s public. So you know, the way for players to do it is in private, but obviously he thought he couldn’t get out of there if he did it privately. And so people ask for trades all the time, all the time. And so I just don’t understand Steve’s stance on that because, if you run your organization well enough, Anthony Davis was in New Orleans, he didn’t make it past the second round in eight, nine years. Like, what do you want him to do?”
Just as many thought Kerr had a good point in his original statement, it is hard to disagree with what Dudley is saying as well. Teams regularly trade players without keeping the player’s own desires in mind. It seems hypocritical to demand that players behave any differently.
Dudley is also right to question why Kerr singled out Davis specifically. While some could argue that Davis’ decision to go public about his trade request may have been a distraction, they could also argue that there is value to star players being open and honest about their personal and professional desires.
Either way, what matters most is that Dudley has Davis’ back.
Though both players have yet to play a minute in the Purple and Gold, it is clear that a sense of team unity is already forming.
