The Los Angeles Lakers emerged as the clear winners of the offseason after successfully retooling the roster via the trade and free agency markets. Part of that entailed re-signing Anthony Davis.
While it was long considered a foregone conclusion, that Davis agreed to a five-year contract came as a surprise. The expectation was Davis would op to sign a shorter deal in order to maximize future earnings as a player with 10 years of service, but he chose security and guaranteed money instead.
When asked why he chose not to go that route, Davis noted that previous injuries played a part in his decision. “It could’ve been a two-year, three-year deal, but like I said before, I want to be here long term,” Davis explained.
“It’s a great organization. I just felt like that was the best option for me. And I had to think about the reality of things, too. I do have a little history with injuries. A two-year deal, you kind of bet on yourself.
“God forbid, knock on wood, something happens and things like that. I wanted to secure the most amount of years possible and be here long term with the team, so I thought the five-year deal was best for me and my situation.”
The 27-year-old has a reputation for being injury prone, and during the 2020 NBA Playoffs Davis suffered a couple of minor injuries that hampered his play a bit. It bucks the recent trend of stars looking to get back into free agency sooner but works well in Los Angeles’s favor.
With Davis in tow for the long term, the storied franchise has their centerpiece of the future. Davis is already focused on adding more rings to his collection, and he is in the best possible place to do so.
Davis details free agency process
Davis mulled his free agency decision into training camp, but no one should blame him as it was a monumental decision for his career.
When asked about the process, the big man gave a brief look into how everything unfolded. “It was just a lot of meetings with Rich, talking about different options, (salary) cap going up, cap might go down, the new CBA,” Davis said.
“Just trying to figure out all those things and get those numbers. That was really just me and him having back-and-forth conversations about what it would look like for each scenario. Also looking at the team, the additions that we added and things like that. We were able to make a decision from there.”
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