Anthony Davis is Just Selling His L.A. House, Not Leaving the Lakers

By Veronica Hall -

When you're a Los Angeles Lakers star, selling your LA home is a sure way to work up rumors from fans. So when the Los Angeles Times reported that player Anthony Davis recently put his Westlake Village home on the market, gossip spread quick.

Davis is reportedly seeking $7.995 million for a 16,000-square-foot mansion featuring five bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a swimming pool with dual water slides and a private basketball court.

The intriguing part of the real estate move is that Davis is currently set to hit free agency this summer, or whenever the NBA decides to hold free agency due to the coronavirus pandemic. If Davis is selling his home because he truly wants out of Los Angeles, it would mark a titanic shift for the NBA’s premier team.

However, there is probably little reason to think Davis’ house being put on the market means he has any current plans to leave the Lakers.

Anthony Davis is Just Selling His L.A. House, Not Leaving the Lakers

What does Anthony Davis selling his L.A. home really mean?
Why isn’t this an indication Davis is planning a Laker exit? This probably isn’t Davis’ only Los Angeles house.

While Davis bought the Westlake Village home above two years ago, TMZ reported that he also started renting a $14 million mansion in Bel Air after being traded to the Lakers.

Unless Davis has stopped renting that house and is willing to swallow the 80-mile roundtrip from Westlake Village to the Lakers’ training facility in El Segundo, the man almost certainly has multiple residences in Los Angeles.

Davis is widely expected to remain with the Lakers after this season. After all, he made no friends in New Orleans while trying to force a trade to the Lakers from the Pelicans, and Los Angeles ended up paying an enormous amount of young talent and assets to land the All-NBA power forward.

Up until Rudy Gobert’s positive coronavirus test, things had been going pretty well for Davis and the Lakers. The team led the Western Conference at 49-14 and looked every bit as good as fans could have reasonably hoped. Davis was averaging 26.7 points, 9.4 rebounds and 2.4 blocks per game while getting some Defensive Player of the Year hype.

If Davis decides to sign elsewhere, he’d be leaving a great situation he himself worked to engineer.

Anthony Davis is Just Selling His L.A. House, Not Leaving the Lakers

There could be several reasons Davis is selling this house. Maybe he wants to own a house closer to the Lakers’ El Segundo practice facility or Staples Center downtown once he has re-signed. Maybe he’s fine with just the Bel Air house for now. Maybe he thinks the Westlake Village house is haunted.

The finances of players who are finishing up $127 million contracts allow for plenty of possibilities.

All of this is to say that it’s very unlikely that Davis called up his financial manager one day and told them he’s planning to leave L.A., so they need to sell his house. It doesn’t mean he is definitely staying or not staying with the Lakers; we’re just dealing with an extremely muddled set of tea leaves right now.