Colin Cowherd: “When a star comes to you and says ‘I don’t wanna play here’ it’s brutal but you made it work. When Anthony Davis made it clear he wanted out, what were the next 48 hours like for you?”
David Griffin: “We said from the beginning that you’re either all the way in or you’re all the way out. It was very clear that he [Anthony Davis] was not all the way in. Throughout the summer we had very good conversations and Anthony asked really good questions but when it was clear he wasn’t with us, Mrs. Benson, our ownership group, myself, and our basketball team recognized that it was time to move on. We tried to create the best opportunity for ourselves that we could and we’re very pleased with the way it unfolded.”
Listen to New Orleans Pelicans President David Griffin join The Herd to discuss how the Pelicans’ tumultuous 2019 season turned into a transcendent facelift for the franchise trying to turn the page on former star player Anthony Davis.
The team was going through a PR firestorm when Davis first publicly announced he wanted off the team with a year and a half left on his current deal, which was followed by a botched trade with the Lakers that greatly damaged the reputation of the franchise.
Fast-forward five months and the Pelicans netted one of the most celebrated phenoms in sports history, Zion Williamson, and capitalized on a blockbuster trade with Los Angeles that netted them an entirely new core.
Check out the audio below as Griffin explains to Colin Cowherd when he officially knew that AD was OUT of the Pelicans’ future.