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Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar likened his trade situation in from the Milwaukee Bucks to the Los Angeles in 1975 to New Orleans Pelicans star Anthony Davis and his current situation.
Davis requested a trade on Friday, Jan. 25, giving the Pelicans little over a week to get a trade done before the deadline. Abdul-Jabbar admitted he's seen the similarities, hoping to get out of a small market to a big city.
“It mirrors almost exactly the same situation I was in in Milwaukee,” Abdul-Jabbar told Ken Berger of Bleacher Report. “Almost exactly.”
“I told Milwaukee, ‘I'm going to New York or I'm going to L.A. I won't be going to Kansas City.'”
KAJ had a shortlist of teams as well, but unlike today's game, his request hadn't gone public like Davis' did, which created an underbelly of ramifications that complicate his move.
“I told them, ‘Look, I'm not signing again,'” Abdul-Jabbar said. “‘You guys gotta find a place to put me where you can get the best deal that you can make. Because I'm out of here.' And they got that. And the fact that I had a good relationship with them — I respected them, they respected me, they paid me well — they did the best deal that they could do for themselves, and it was a pretty good deal. Given they got four very good players for me, I thought that everybody won.”
The legend of the skyhook shortly said the magic words, noting these type of requests are best handled between the player and the team.
“He just shouldn't do it in public,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “Those are discussions for behind closed doors.”
Davis' divorce with the Pelicans was too big of a story not to come out to the incessant amount of press the NBA now has. Much differently that in KAJ's day, in which reports were game-focused and social media was nonexistent, making his trade request much easier to keep under wraps.
