Sunday Cup of Canis: Davis to L.A., USWNT in Action

In the end, the Lakers got their man. After a contentious and often public negotiation that failed at the trade deadline, the New Orleans Pelicans have agreed to trade Anthony Davis to the Lakers for Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, Josh Hart, and three first round picks including the fourth overall pick in this week’s draft.

While nobody ever wants to have to trade a superstar of Davis’ caliber, this appears to be a terrific return for the Pels, especially since Davis was manipulating the trade market by making it clear what he planned to do after reaching free agency in 2020.

The Pelicans have apparently made the fourth pick available in trade, and we’ll see what happens with that this week. You can read the details about the trade on ESPN.

This obviously makes the Lakers better right now, and they still have significant cap space. How they use that space may be the most important aspect of their off-season and might define the rest of LeBron James’ tenure in Los Angeles.

In Wolves news...

It’s clear that the current regime is much more interested in public relations than the previous one. They’ve consistently been more forthcoming, and last week invited several prominent media members to watch game six of the Finals with them. We discussed this in comments a couple of days ago, but it’s smart by an organization that needs to improve it’s image to engage with the influential voices in Twins Cities sports media.

Meanwhile, they’ve been bringing in draft prospects at a somewhat dizzying pace. Just this past week they’ve had Brandon Clarke, P.J. Washington, Nassir Little, Romeo Langford, Tyler Herro, Cameron Johnson, Sekou Doumbouya and others in town.

The sense I get is that there are a lot of moving parts around the league, and the Wolves could move in either direction or stay in place on Thursday. I think teams with multiple picks are going to be shuffling around; One rumor has the Bulls trading the 5th pick for 10 and 17 from Atlanta, depending on who is available where. I suspect we’ll see quite a bit of this on draft night, and maybe the Wolves get involved in something.

The USWNT is back in action today for their second group game of the World Cup. After their absolute thumping of Thailand last week (13-0,) they play Chile today at 11:00 am Central on Fox. Chile is a step up from Thailand, but still not a team that should trouble the U.S. very much.

The Lynx also play today, hosting the Las Vegas Aces who have some of the most exciting talent in the WNBA in A’ja Wilson and Liz Cambage. The Lynx have been up and down this season so far as we expected, and sit at 4-4. Tonight’s game tips at 6 pm.