New Orleans Pelicans forward Anthony Davis didn’t make the All-NBA squad and it’s going to cost him dearly.
The All-NBA squads were announced on Thursday with the usual candidates on the list: LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, Kevin Durant and Chris Paul.
All NBA Teams announced: pic.twitter.com/t9eE94iFf1
— Complex Sports (@ComplexSports) May 26, 2016
One player who didn’t make the team was Davis, who finished third-out of players who received votes but didn’t make the ballot. Under the max contract he signed last summer, Davis missed out on earning an extra $24 million by not being named to any of the All-NBA teams according to Fox Sports. As Adam Schefter of ESPN.com reports, his contract now dips from a total of $145 million to $121 million. That’s significant and brutal for Davis.
The 23-year-old seemed like a lock to make an All-NBA team and earn the large dollar amount before finalizing the deal. Davis had quickly catapulted himself to the NBA’s elite and played a position where he had a good chance of earning one of the multiple all-league nods. He averaged an impressive 24.3 points per game, 10.3 rebounds, and 2.0 blocks.
Unfortunately for Davis, he missed the final 14 games of the season with a shoulder injury and only appeared in 61 games overall. When push came to shove it was hard to slot him over the likes of Paul George, Draymond Green, and Durant, all of whom stayed healthy the entire season. If Davis would have stayed healthy, there’s no doubt he’d have been on one of the teams.
Davis is still going to earn hundreds of millions of dollars during his career, so losing $24 million won’t hurt his ability to provide for himself and family, but it’s still freaking awful to lose that much money over something so trivial. That’s the risk of having the clause in your contract to begin with.
