The Atlanta Hawks were one of the teams interested in trading for Anthony Davis before the deadline, but they ultimately decided to steer clear, which was the right decision. His age (33) and injury concerns are big enough concerns, but even more so when paired with his contract status, as he's now eligible to sign an extension.
Washington swooped in to trade for Davis instead, though he may not be on the team for that much longer. The Wizards decided to wait to discuss a potential extension during the season, which may never happen if ESPN's prediction comes true. Unsurprisingly, AD received the most points (10) among players who will be the next to request a trade. Tim MacMahon wrote:
If Washington isn't willing to pay Davis what he wants, why would he be satisfied to stick around and attempt to help the Wizards snap a six-year playoff drought?
The Hawks are fresh off a playoff berth, so while they're better positioned to contend for a title than the Wizards, Atlanta isn't in the contender category yet.
Given that Davis and his agent, Rich Paul, will likely demand a maximum extension ($275 million across four years), if he were with the Hawks and didn't get whatever he wanted, he could ask out.
Hawks were right not to trade for Anthony Davis
It's a relief for Atlanta that it isn't debating whether to extend Davis, since he became eligible to sign a new deal earlier this month. If you sat down and made a pros-and-cons list about extending him to the kind of deal he's seeking, you'd probably spend most of your time filling in the cons side.
You don't pay someone a maximum deal, or close to it, with those kinds of injury concerns, no matter how much better he'd evaluate your team's play on both ends of the floor. Davis showed flashes of that player this past season with the Mavericks, but only in short stretches, as he played just 20 games, and after landing with the Wizards, he didn't play at all.
It would've made more sense for the Hawks to gamble on an AD trade if they were committed to keeping Trae Young, but they didn't want to pay him the kind of deal he wanted, which he ended up getting from the Wizards, which could come back to bite them. That's another story.
Rather than pursue Davis after trading Young, adding one star after losing another, the Hawks didn't let temptation win. It already worked out for them, since they still made the playoffs anyway.
They can build on last season's success without worrying about what to do with Davis, like whether he will demand a trade and want to go to a team where he could win sooner if he doesn't get the money he wants, which could very well be how his time in Washington ends, hence why ESPN believes he will ask out.
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