Not even a month after the Anthony Davis trade saga, GM Dell Demps of the New Orleans Pelicans is fired.
This only happened because Anthony Davis injured his left shoulder! It is crazy to think anything otherwise. The impression around the Pelicans ownership and management is that Demps did not sell high on Davis when he had the opportunity. That Demps made a mistake by keeping the star instead of taking what some would say was the house from the Los Angeles Lakers before the trade deadline.
However, Demps was in a very tough spot and the thought was that he did the smart thing by not trading Davis. It is no secret that Davis is amongst one of the most coveted targets by teams around the league. Now knowing that he is available teams all across the league will be looking forward to putting in a bid on receiving his services. Demps played the long game and decided that what was best for the Pelicans was to see what the league could offer for Davis rather than just taking the first offer given to them by a team with assets that may or may not pan out in their liking. I mean in the end if no other team could offer what the Lakers was offering, the Lakers would still be desperate to receive Davis and come with the same package they did before.
It sounds like the Pelicans ownership and management fell victim to fear that with Davis suffering an injury teams now would try to low ball them in their negotiations, but that would make no sense. The Los Angeles Lakers were willing to give up almost their entire roster for Davis, whom is known to be injury prone. So it begs me to wonder if the Pelicans ownership fired Demps because they felt that he was not looking out for the Pelicans best interest, or if they were already headed in that direction of parting ways and the Davis injury after the trade saga just seems like the "more perfect" reason.
Either way, it still comes down to the notion that something in New Orleans was not going well between Demps and ownership. They must have blamed him for why Davis was requesting a trade in the first place. Or maybe they really coveted the pieces that LA had and by saying no to he trade it pissed a lot of people off in that organization. But the real question is what will be done with Davis? Will the next GM just end him off to LA or will they be vigilant in trying to find the best deal for Davis in a trade. It just seems like Demps was fired for no reason outside of the fear that with Davis being hurt teams will now try to short hand them on his worth in trade negotiations.
The flip side to this is that the New Orleans Pelicans ownership could have sat Davis out for the rest of the year to preserve his stock and going rate. They would have been fined by the NBA but their number one asset could have remained hot and most important healthy. It seems as though Demps is taking the heat for mistakes made by ownership to not be all in on the long game approach and since they are not going to blame themselves for poor decision making, they are making Demps out to be the bad guy. In the end I believe Demps did the right thing and in time we will see just exactly how right he was, even if he is not around to tell the Pelicans "I told you so"!
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