Photo: ClutchPoints

The Los Angeles Lakers small forward Jared Dudley opens up about the Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr’s criticism of Anthony Davis, for forcing a trade to the Los Angeles Lakers this summer, per Silver Screen and Roll:

“You know what, I am a huge Steve Kerr fan. Obviously, he traded for me. I was in Phoenix with the same agent (Mark Bartelstein). That’s the only time I think I’ve disagreed with him. Because, why can’t a player ask out of his contract if what you sold him on changed? Happens all the time. Hey, we want to win, but now we’re going to rebuild. Vice-versa where a guy gets traded after a year when there are three years left on his contract. And so why can a team be able to trade but a player can’t ask for a trade?

Now, the only difference of this is the perception. Paul George asks for a trade, but no one knows about it. But Anthony Davis comes out and because it’s public, now he’s getting killed, just because it’s public. So you know, the way for players to do it is in private, but obviously he thought he couldn’t get out of there if he did it privately. And so people ask for trades all the time, all the time. And so I just don’t understand Steve’s stance on that because, if you run your organization well enough, Anthony Davis was in New Orleans, he didn’t make it past the second round in eight, nine years. Like, what do you want him to do?” Dudley said.