More than a year removed from what many still consider the most unexpected deal in NBA history, Anthony Davis has finally detailed the exact moment he found out he was being traded for Luka Doncic, and like the rest of the basketball world, he didn’t believe it at first.
“First of all, I had no idea that I was even traded. Go upstairs like ‘You know what I’m gonna go upstairs, watch a movie.’ Get in the bed, turn the movie on, wife next to me and you know I’m trying to find a movie and I see Rob Pelinka calls me,” Davis said speaking on The Draymond Green Show. “I’m like man you know what, I’ll hit him back tomorrow. Then he texts me ‘AD when you get a chance hit me back, me and Coach got something to run by you.’ Rich [Paul] said he tried to call me, I never got Rich’s call. So Rich then called my wife and was like ‘Tell AD to call me.’ So I’m like ‘What up, Rich?’ He’s like ‘Man they just traded you to Dallas’ and I’m like ‘Man, shut up.’ I said ‘Who the f— they gonna trade me for, Luka?’ Like I was just saying who else can you trade me for on that team. Nico was calling me, I’m like ‘Rich I’m gonna call you back.’
“’Hello?’ ‘Yeah I told you I was gonna come get you one day, I wanted you.’ I know Rich and Nico cool like y’all playin a joke. This ain’t real. Foul Play [laughs] Gotchu! So I call Rob Pelinka back and he’s like telling me all this stuff and like, ‘You know when Bron’s done we want somebody to take over. We wanna go younger you know, rebuild.’ And I’m like huh? And my chef is right there in front of me and I’m like ‘I just got traded to the Mavs’ and he started laughing. So I’m like you know what? I know if this is true. I go on X, go straight to Shams’ [Charania] page. Nothing. Go up the stairs, Joel Embiid calls me. Somebody else called me, another player and I’m like wait, hold on. So I go back to Shams’ page and then there it is.”
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