This situation just took a crazy twist...

The Wizards situation just took a huge twist with the news of LeBron James signing in Philadelphia. It outlines an even tougher path than ever expected in the East, but also it brings us some brand new updates on the Anthony Davis situation with new reports about a potential extension, trade, and a whole lot more. We get to dive into all the latest news, rumors, reports, what this LeBron signing really means for the Wizards, but also a nice little note on AJ DeBonsa as some brand new stats from Summer League show that one improvement he's made is honestly quite a bit better than I think a lot of people could have anticipated. We're going to dive into all of that coming up on this episode of Wizards Digest, and don't you forget, if you're subscribed, you get daily, daily Wizards content, and still 90% of you are not subscribed. We're here every single day giving you all the latest and greatest, and we're going to start here today, Nick, with AJ DeBonsa, and we all love AJ DeBonsa. Leave a like on the video if you like what you saw from AJ DeBonsa in Summer League. We've done this before, but this comes from David Lee, no, not that David Lee, on X. This is stop percentage from college to Summer League, essentially showing the players that had the biggest difference in defense, essentially, from college to Summer League, and what do you know, AJ DeBonsa, second only to Morris Johnson Jr., who himself had a fantastic Summer League, which just signifies what we all kind of wanted to see, Nick. I know the offense is whatever, I think we're done talking about that three-point percentage, but this right here backs up the eye test as well. What he was doing in Summer League defensively is kind of exactly that next evolution of his play style from college to the NBA that you wanted to see, especially in a situation in Washington where the ball's not going to be in his hands as much with Trey Young, with Anthony Davis, who we'll get into in a bit. I mean, this to me is just highly, highly encouraging. I mean, it's exactly what we wanted to see, and honestly, it really passed the eye test too. Yeah, looking at it from, like you mentioned, the eye test, you can look at his stats, obviously he's still a game, had a couple blocks, he looked very, very good in college, he looked very, very good in Summer League. One of the reasons he was drafted so high and was so highly touted was his defense, and then now for the Wizards to get the number one overall pick and now be keeping, basically confirmed, we'll dive into it later in the video, Anthony Davis. They honestly have a very good chance to be an extremely good defensive team, even with Trey Young on the, you know, starting. You have Anthony Davis, you have AJ DeBonsa, and for that increase, but it passes the eye test exactly what we expected, but also just looking at that, with how good he was in college as well, it's pretty hard not to be excited for his defensive upside, and I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up being almost a defensive stopper for the Wizards next year, and maybe take on a bit of a less, a bit less of an offensive role than a lot of people think, not because he's, I think he's still going to average, you know, near 20, but if you can just play really, really good defense and let the offense flow naturally, I think it might be the most likely outcome for him. I really like that point because a lot of times, you know, these players that are great at defense, the great two-way players are great because it's extremely hard to do that, right? To be the top guy defensively and also the top guy offensively, it tires you out a lot, but like you said, right, AJ DeBonsa, he's not going to have the ball in his hands as much on offense, but I still think he will quite a lot. He's probably going to be the hub of a lot of offense, but if he can exert more effort on defense and kind of be a go-to wing stopper, that's just something that's like, it's icing on the cake, man. I mean, already something that we would have wanted to see, but like, it could be a reality. I know it's a two-game sample and so it's not much to go off of, but it's very exciting nonetheless. So leave some love for AJ's defense down below, but I want to get into, obviously, the big news today. Look, you're not coming here to learn of the LeBron news, and if you are, well, if we broke the news to you, that's pretty crazy, but yeah, of course, LeBron James signed in Philadelphia. Uh, here's the Sham's tweet. LeBron, it's very interesting, the outlook of the Eastern Conference this year, because this is one of the best versions of the East I've seen in my, I don't know if I want to say my lifetime, at least in recent memory. The East is completely, completely stacked, and I want to dive into some other stuff here, and that is from Sleeper Wizards. In terms of making top six this year, this move low-keys good for the Wizards, right? Philly was already a top three team in the East. Cleveland and Miami take the big hits here. Now, while I sort of agree, I still think Cleveland is a powerful team, I still think Miami's a powerful team, but Nick, like, this clearly doesn't make it any easier for the Wizards, let alone the implications that we'll talk about in a moment with Anthony Davis. Yeah, you can make it, maybe argue it gives them slightly easier of a chance to make it out of the play-in or in an actual playoff spot, but to win the Eastern Conference, yeah, the chances definitely went down. I mean, Philly has had a crazy offseason. They have Jalen Brown, they added LeBron James, they obviously have a lot of guys over there, and you look at it last year, obviously the Wizards were last. You do have a lot of teams to, I guess, jump in. I think a realistic expectation, we talk about the 40 wins, 45 wins, I mean, you have the Pistons are so good, the Celtics, the Raptors are going to be very, very good, assuming the Kawhi Leonard trade goes through. It's a little bit scary, but at the same time, I think what this means for the Wizards going forward, which we'll dive into in a minute here, there were a lot of reports about LeBron trying to get AD, LeBron trying to get Kyrie from Dallas. They want to, AD wants to be here, it seems. The Wizards want to keep AD around, and I think they're going to be competitive, but also, you're going to need to be a pretty good team. With the new tanking rules, there's no real benefit now, even more so, to trade Anthony Davis. I mean, you already signed Trey Young. Try to win some games. I mean, you now have Anthony Davis, who can obviously be a really good defender. The Eastern Conference is loaded, so you're going to need to have, I mean, there's a chance if Anthony Davis is healthy next year, like, this team could be a top six seed. Now, the top three is absolutely loaded, maybe even the top five, but I get what Sleeper is saying a little bit. Cleveland, if they got LeBron, would be really, really good. Philly would still be good, so there is some truth to it, but it definitely doesn't help their case of trying to win the East, which I don't know how many Wizards fans, we can be optimistic, but I don't know how many of us think they're going to win the East anyway. Yeah, I mean, it's going to be an uphill battle, for sure, that still have a lot of questions, but a lot of the questions are answered simply by what is happening with Anthony Davis. Now, again, for this year, maybe there aren't as many questions right now, because, look, we've talked a lot about it, whether a trade would be coming or not, and Greg Finberg tweeted this out today, as well, basically saying, you know, like, LeBron signing with Philly should end most of these Davis trade rumors, because we heard a lot of other stuff about LeBron waiting on that AD. We talked about this, but yesterday, LeBron James is delaying his decision to see if his suitors can acquire Anthony Davis or Kyrie Irving. Some people were saying, oh, Anthony Davis and Villanova, like, today, look, I don't anticipate any kind of Davis for Embiid swap, though, I've seen crazier things. I don't think that's something that's going to happen. However, a lot of the season, like you said, hinges on Anthony Davis and the contract that he will sign, maybe, for the future. We're all looking at this August 6th day, because that is when negotiations will start. I don't think it'll be signed on that day, but you never know. Full court pass, saying here via Brett Siegel and clutch points, the Wizards want to agree to a long-term deal with Anthony Davis, but they are not going to give him a max contract. And the actual quote from Brett Siegel was this. The Wizards aren't interested in trading AD. They want a long-term deal. Anthony Davis wants a max extension, but it's not going to happen. And I think the phrasing is interesting here. Davis wants a max extension. Now, of course he does. Who wouldn't? I mean, this guy has been incredible. I showed you earlier his stats over the last five years, because I think just showing last year, like, it doesn't give you the full perspective. Like, 24 point per game score, 12 rebound. He hasn't been an all defensive player in three or four years. But hey, guys like Kendrick Perkins still think AD is going to be in the MVP conversation. Look, now we're starting to see, like, I don't want to say, oh, this is definitely a disagreement between AD and the Wizards. He wants a max. They don't want to give it to him. But especially with this LeBron thing going down and like AD, like this could be his home for the future. I know the Wizards probably want to wait and see, but they can stay to go on here. Like I started to wonder, do you think there's a real world where Davis is like, I'm just not signing for less than Yeah, if that happens, I guess the question will be whether or not they're going to trade Anthony Davis, which all reports Choms as well came out and has kind of been echoing the same thing. It doesn't seem like they want to trade him, which makes all the sense in the world. My guess is either Washington will cave and give him a max extension, or it'll be something close to it. Obviously, Anthony Davis, does he deserve a max extension? Like probably, but I don't know if it makes sense for any team. Like you can argue that he deserves it. You can argue that he doesn't and you'd both be right, I think. But at the same time, I want to see how they play. I think Anthony Davis has MVP upside. If you play 60, 65 games next year, he is one of the best players in basketball. Now, yes, he's aging a little bit. He's 33 years old, but it's not like he's coming off a season averaging 14 points a game and 10 rebounds or something like that. Even his down, down year after getting completely blindsided by, you know, the Lakers, I guess, if you want to call it that Rob Lincoln and getting traded, he still ended up putting up nearly, you know, a double-double over 20 points a game. The question is how will his body continue to age and his defense? Because if he isn't a, I don't know, all defensive big man, his value goes down quite a lot, though he's still one of the better scorers as a big man in the NBA. So I don't know, it is interesting though. I see why the Wizards want to extend him. You kind of need someone like AD to win in the Eastern Conference right now. I mean, you have Embiid, you have to go up against Jokic if you get there. There's a lot of different avenues here, but having AD certainly helps. And realistically, if you look at the Wizards depth chart here, who else is going to be, you know, their big man in the future? You have a few guys, of course. You have some young players, but at the same time, do you trust, you know, I mean, Chris Middleton is listed here as their backup power forward. Yeah, you have Alex Starr, you have DeAndre Ayton. Starr is really, really good. Who plays power forward if you don't have Anthony Davis? It could be, you know, maybe you move, I don't know, there's a lot of areas there. AD is a clear, important piece of this team, and they didn't address a backup power forward. Not that they need to, they have tons of young guys, but I don't know, I think you need to keep Anthony Davis on the team right now. With the team construction, it makes no sense at this point to trade him. No, but if you trade him, you will need to get some kind of big man back. I think that's a necessity at this point, right? So, I mean, I think Ayton's good stopgap as a backup center, whatever, like Anthony Davis, Alex Starr, and DeAndre Ayton is good enough, and Vukcevic can eat some minutes. He's not bad by any means. I mean, he's going to be able to be there as a third string guy, second string if you need him to be. So like, there are choices, but you're right. It just feels like now, we're getting at the point where there are more questions than answers, and part of it is just time will tell, but now I'm just like marking my calendar for August 6th, because I don't think any of this is going to stop until then, and even then, it's probably going to drag on long after that. It's probably going to drag on into the season, maybe even up to like the deadline. So hey, buckle up, and make sure you're subscribed, because we're going to be on top of all the latest news every single day. Thank you for watching this video. I'm Josh Goss, my co-host. Nick Goss, we'll catch you in the next one.