RESOLVING THE LEDGER
This is one outlet's own report from CBS Sports — the article as it was filed. Other outlets are covering the same event; open the full story to compare every source side by side.
See the full story · 1 sources
One of the most persistent rumors of the LeBron James sweepstakes was that he wanted to use his final decision as a means to reunite with one of his best former teammates. Kyrie Irving's name appeared briefly in the rumor mill, but far more prominently involved was Anthony Davis , who was frequently linked to the Golden State Warriors , but theoretically could have been dealt to several teams in the James sweepstakes.
Well, James made up his mind without a Davis trade. He is now a member of the Philadelphia 76ers . Conveniently enough, those same 76ers happen to employ another star center whose supermax contract pays him almost exactly the same amount that Davis is currently earning: Joel Embiid . It didn't take long for the Twitter-verse to start speculating on a possible Davis-for-Embiid swap, and hey, at least it makes basketball sense.
While Embiid was the superior player in the brief moments either were on the court last season, his mobility is all but gone at this stage. Defensively, with the 42-year-old James at power forward, Davis would seem to be a far safer bet. Embiid and Jaylen Brown tend to operate within similar areas of the court offensively as mid-range shooters. Davis does some of that as well, but not nearly as much. His lob gravity on a team with this much scoring would be enormously valuable.
Davis and James are both represented by Rich Paul and Klutch Sports. Embiid is not. Current 76ers executive Bob Myers ran the Golden State Warriors throughout their dynasty. They were frequently linked to Davis in previous transaction cycles. The speculation is coming from a reasonable place.
Yet for the time being, a deal seems fairly unlikely. There's a straightforward explanation for why: the Washington Wizards , by all accounts, don't want to trade Davis. It takes two to tango, and if the Wizards don't cooperate, there's nothing the Sixers can do about it.
We could wrap this up and call it a story from there. Yet the Davis and Embiid situations, for some overlapping reasons and some unique ones, both warrant further exploration because they're both sensible trade candidates. So let's take a closer look at each of them and attempt to figure out where exactly they stand with their existing rosters.
All of the reporting on Davis and the Wizards has been aligned on one thing: Washington does not want to trade him. Of course, that is hardly binding. Teams use the media to send messages all the time. If Washington did plan to trade Davis, they'd still want the world believing they intended to keep him if only to drive up the price. Getting Deandre Ayton at least gave them a playable replacement in mid-July, which is part of what drove these rumors.
If that were the case here, though, the Wizards missed the obvious window. The time to maximize Davis' trade value was before James signed with his new team. Think of the value the Oklahoma City Thunder extracted for Paul George in 2019. They were able to get the historic haul they got because they were functionally trading the Los Angeles Clippers George and Kawhi Leonard . If the Wizards wanted to maximize their return on a possible Davis trade, the move was to play the 76ers, the Warriors and potentially even the Cleveland Cavaliers against one another by dangling the carrot of James on a minimum contract alongside him.
That they didn't do so suggests that they really do intend to keep Davis. The next question for the two sides comes on Aug. 6, when Davis is eligible for a four-year, $275 million contract extension. Throw those numbers out the window. Davis is 33, injury-prone, already owed around $121 million over the next two years, and didn't play at an All-Star level in his brief appearances last season. He's not getting $275 million. But he reportedly wants an extension of some kind, and the Wizards have hinted at the prospect of giving him one.
We can't say whether an extension would be wise without knowing the final numbers, but in all likelihood, it would lower Davis' trade value. Remember, Davis was dealt for a pittance at the deadline in part because of all of those red flags we just raised above. It's hard to imagine many teams eager to pay him even more than the Wizards are already slated to. That is especially true for the 76ers, whose books, despite being quite top-heavy, are designed pretty intentionally.
As it stands, Embiid, Jaylen Brown, Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe will all see their contracts expire in 2029. At the very least, Edgecombe will presumably get a big raise from his rookie-scale amount to a market-value extension. There's a chance that Maxey jumps from his 25% max contract up to a 35% max contract, and if he doesn't, a 30% standard max deal for a player with his experience is still quite expensive. Philadelphia can abide these new deals because they know they won't have to pay Embiid (and possibly Brown) when they arrive. If the 76ers replace the Embiid salary slot with Davis on an extension that drags into the 2029-30 season, that complicates their long-term finances significantly.
We should point out here that Davis has not yet played a game for the Wizards, and that Washington's circumstances have changed a great deal since his acquisition. The Wizards didn't know they'd win the lottery when they got him. They probably didn't know they'd have to pay Trae Young the max to retain him either. If Washington elects not to offer Davis a substantial extension, it's possible that a trade gets revisited during the season.
Of course, even that would introduce quite a few variables into the equation. If Embiid is healthy and productive, for instance, Philadelphia might not be all that motivated to make a deal. If the 76ers struggle as a team, they might determine that sacrificing their limited remaining draft capital for Davis isn't worthwhile. Remember, while James may only be there for a year or two, Maxey, Edgecombe and potentially Brown have a long window ahead of them. Giving up, say, the r...
AIPROPX is an independent multi-source news index — we track, compare, and connect coverage from across the web into one place you won't find anywhere else.