How well did Anthony Davis/Boogie/Rondo actually co-exist in New Orleans?
David Grubb:
"The relationship between the three in the locker room, on the court, and off the court were very different. I’m going to preface all of the answers to these questions by stating that none of this is conjecture or is meant in any way to attack these individuals personally. I think people need to understand that for most of New Orleans, what AD did was actually the best thing for the Pelicans. None of this, including the Davis trade, probably goes down as it did without his initial trade request. That being said, there was friction at times between them, and it was typically either Davis or Rondo dealing with Cousins. There were reports that Davis bristled at the attention that Cousins was getting during 2017-18, being mentioned as an early MVP candidate that season. More than one story circulated that Davis was told that he was losing his own team to the more charismatic Cousins. There were also stories that Cousins would ask to be reinserted into games to pad his stats and that he regularly broke off plays on both ends. Rondo was not happy that Cousins was injured, but he welcomed the opportunity to take full charge of the offense once the ball was no longer being stopped when it reached Cousins’ hands. When both signed elsewhere after the season, it was an open secret that Davis was more impacted by the loss of Rondo than that of Cousins."
This was a discussion on ESPN that got heated. Understand that LeBron was still in Cleveland at the time. Pay special attention to Jalen Rose‘s statement about ESPN being a “Cleveland Cavaliers” network.
Now the question is, can Anthony Davis deal with the attention (or lack thereof) of being with the most polarizing NBA player in history? Davis will not know the level of the drama of playing with LeBron James until basically 25 games into the season.
If you don’t think LeBron James’ every move is scrutinized, there is a debate all over social media how he celebrated his son, Bronny, dunking in an AAU game.
The debates will eventually come out who’s the best player on the Lakers. This piece is not about that, if you are a Lakers fan, you really shouldn’t care. But if Anthony Davis starts to care as he did in New Orleans, this will be an issue if the Lakers have problems during the season.