76ers should be thankful Anthony Davis heading to Lakers

In a way, the Philadelphia 76ers should be thrilled over the fact that Anthony Davis ended up with the Los Angeles Lakers.

While the Philadelphia 76ers were never actually considered a potential landing spot for Anthony Davis in a trade, there were some concerns over how certain trades could impact Brett Brown‘s squad.

For starters, there were talks over the possibility of Davis ending up with the Boston Celtics, although the team didn’t seem to have that strong of a chance to convince the star forward to stick around for the long run.

But now that Davis is officially heading to the Los Angeles Lakers through what can be best described as an absolutely insane trade with the New Orleans Pelicans, at least Philadelphia doesn’t have to worry about facing the six-time All-Star in the conference each season.

Not to mention, Davis joining the Lakers could actually benefit the Sixers in a big way when it comes to convincing Jimmy Butler to return to the team to put Philadelphia in better position to remain a serious threat in the Eastern Conference.

Despite missing out on adding a third superstar to the roster last summer to play alongside Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid, the Sixers ended up landing Butler from the Minnesota Timberwolves in a trade early last season.

As Philadelphia fans witnessed, there’s no way the Sixers would have reached Game 7 of the semifinals against the Toronto Raptors if it weren’t for Butler’s presence, and words can’t even describe the importance of trying to bring him back for the future.

Clearly, Philadelphia needs another superstar like Butler just to keep up with the rest of the competition in the Eastern Conference, and believe it or not, there could be some sort of impact from the Davis trade that actually benefits the Sixers.

How so? Well, here’s a recent breakdown from Bryan Toporek in Forbes that shows the chances of Butler ending up on the Lakers just became a little more difficult as a result of the Davis trade.

"If the Davis trade becomes official on July 6 as expected, the Lakers will have either $27.7 million in salary-cap space if he waives his 15 percent trade kicker or $23.7 million if he doesn’t. That will leave them far short of the $32.7 million they’d need to offer a max contract to Butler, Harris or any other free agents with 7-9 years of NBA experience.For the Lakers to have enough cap space to sign Butler or Harris, they’ll need to convince the Pelicans to delay finalizing the Davis trade until July 30. However, Tania Ganguli of the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday that “although the Pelicans are open to working with the Lakers and delaying the trade, it’s unlikely that will happen, according to multiple people familiar with their thinking.”"

Keep in mind that Butler made it pretty obvious that he will be seeking a max deal this summer, and the recent decision to opt out of his player option for 2019-20 really wasn’t a surprise at all last week.

Basically, if Butler still intends to seek a max deal, the Lakers are most likely out of the picture as a result of this David trade, which the Sixers should be all smiles about.

Plenty can happen from now until the official start of free agency next month, but when it comes to Philadelphia, it’s still difficult not to view them as the favorites at the moment to land Butler, especially now that Davis has made the Lakers possibility unlikely to happen.