Anthony Davis Trade Will Relocate The Pelicans

Anthony Davis is by all accounts is a top 5 NBA player who any franchise would be more than pleased to build a team around. The New Orlean Pelicans struck gold in 2012 when they landed with the 1st overall pick, who they used on Davis. So far the tenure with Davis has been poor with them only making the playoffs twice in Anthony Davis's 6 years in the league. In 2015 The Pelicans got Swept by the Warriors to send them home in the first round, while in 2018 they had more success. In the first round they swept the Trailblazers, but in the second round they were sent home in 5 games to the Warriors. The common notion around the league is that Anthony Davis will be traded, the problem is that if this does happen then The Pelicans will have to move out of New Orleans.

Currently the Pelicans are one of the teams who are losing money every season. On average the Pelicans have 15,620 fans in attendance, which currently has them ranked at 25th in the league. New Orleans is on the fringe of being last place in the league in attendance, when they have a top 5 player in the league. In 2018, Forbes released an article where they estimated the value of all the teams in the league, with The Pelicans coming in last place. They have the least value out of all the teams, even when the league owned the Pelicans they made it a mission to find someone who will keep the team in New Orleans. It took the league two years to sell it to Tom Benson, who unfortunately died in March 2018. The Pelicans are now owned by his wife, Gayle Benson, who is a business women. She understands that sports is a business and will want to make some money off the team, most likely. If The Pelicans are starting to become a blackhole, money-wise, then it would make no financial sense to keep the team in New Orleans.

Anthony Davis wants a better team around him to help him become a contender and help his legacy. The common rumor is that Davis will go to LA to join LeBron because in September, Davis signed with LeBron's agency, Klutch Sports. Davis will be best remembered if he goes to a team of his own or if he stays in New Orleans. All of LeBron's teammates get highly criticized and the common phrase is that if you win it's all because of LeBron and if you lose it's all your fault. Davis will have his legacy potentially hurt, like how Love did. Love before he was traded was considered one of the best, if not the best, power forwards in the league at the time. He was a double-double machine, who could hit a 3 pointer and was considered the face of the Timberwolves. Now Love has turned into a shell of himself, reputation-wise, he was highly coveted and now it's debated on whether or not he's an all-star. Anthony Davis could potentially turn into this if he doesn't help out James win a title. 

If the Pelican's trade Anthony Davis they also face the issue of potentially moving the team. With The Pelican's being dead last, to almost last place in every financial category the franchise is really only selling anything because of Davis. Without Davis, the team would be faced with the issue of relocating due to a huge drop in sales. The jersey sales would even dramatically drop, as of last season Davis was the 15th highest selling jersey in the league. 

New Orleans is mainly a football town, with the Saints being the kings of the town. In 2018, The Saints had the 8th highest average attendance, with 73,051 fans in attendance. On average, The Saints are averaging 57,431 more fans per game than The Pelicans. With this problem, fighting for your own town's attendance, you'd have to consider moving if your franchise player is dealt away.

However, The Pelicans do have a huge advantage over the competition with the supermax extension. The Pelicans can offer Davis $266,633,018 while any other team can offer Davis $252,316,701, that's a $14,316,317 decision Davis could be faced with. The Pelicans can also take a play out of the Clippers playbook and give Davis a "jersey retirement," just like how the Clippers did with Blake Griffin. They can pitch to Davis that he can become the greatest player in Pelican's History and be their Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, or Michael Jordan.

Anthony Davis can easily go down as the greatest Pelican of all-time, if the Pelicans can find a way to keep him. If The Pelicans don't act now and build a contender around Davis, New Orleans could potentially lose their professional basketball team. The Anthony Davis being traded story isn't just a story about a player being traded, but a story about how New Orleans could lose their team.