New Orleans Pelicans head coach Alvin Gentry had nothing but nice things to say about former franchise star Anthony Davis ahead of his team's clash against the Los Angeles Lakers.
Gentry coached Davis for the previous four seasons and didn't want to make much of the turmoil surrounding the organization or the front office in the wake of his former star's trade request. Instead, Gentry praised AD:
“AD is a great kid. You’re not going to get me to say anything bad about AD,” Gentry told Mark Medina of USA TODAY Sports. “He wanted to be traded. He had the right to ask for it. That’s it. There’s nothing else there.”
Gentry chalked up Davis’ return as just “a freaking basketball game,” despite the ESPN underlining this matchup in red pen as Davis' return to New Orleans.
Lakers coach Frank Vogel and his players did the same, attempting to downplay the game’s significance with a slew of clichés. Vogel even went as far as reminding his players “to stay in the moment.”
LeBron James noted the Lakers will take Davis' return to The Big Easy as a team, supporting him and ensuring he doesn't drown in the boos that are sure to rain down after he steps foot on the Smoothie King Center floor. LeBron noted that it's just basketball once the game starts:
“The greatest thing is when you finally get on the floor and that ball tips up,” James said. “There’s nothing but strictly basketball. Everything else doesn’t matter at that point.”
Davis infamously had a quick change in attitude since his agent, Rich Paul, made the trade request public, coming off indecisive and unsure of what to say after the media attention he soon was getting. To compound the issue, The Brow wore a Looney Tunes-inspired “That's all Folks!” shirt to his last game as a Pelican, something the fans won't forget once the ball tips off.
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