Ignoring the Dwight Howard aspect of it all, this tells me that Anthony Davis has a loud voice in roster building, and yet again is demanding to spend most of his time at the 4, which ultimately is not the best thing for his team. The best version of AD teams in general and the Lakers specifically has him playing the center. He’s an elite interior defender and scorer. He’s good at both of those on the perimeter, but not elite. His jump shots need to be honored, but are not exceptionally efficient, although his passing makes up for that a bit. He can rotate from the interior to the perimeter on defense and give players trouble, and certainly cover bigs who want to launch jumpers while getting back to the rim, but you don’t want him on the perimeter 100% of the time.
And when he’s at the 4, that means his team regularly has to put in a stiff at center who might be solid on interior defense but exploitable in 5-out offenses, and likewise clogs the paint giving AD and drivers on offense less room to work. If a team has two AD’s, sure, play one at the 4 and the other at the 5, or alternate them there. Would have worked great with Horford. Cousins at least could play inside and out on offense, although was very exploitable on defense. But having multiple centers like McGee and Howard to protect AD from logging more than a handful of minutes a game at the 5 is just not putting your best team forward, and will cost you games in a very competitive West.