Now the basic idea was a trade option of packaging a numerous of our picks along with few promising young players for a star player. It doesn't have to be Davis. You can do that for Durant, Griffin, George or someone else. The idea is to trade quantity for quality, just like Danny said few days ago.
Now there is a realistic chance that Danny will have to overpay in order to get a star. Not saying that he will and and I don't know what would be a realistic border of overpaying and not overpaying. It all depends,he could make a splash or he could decide to stay put and wait for the offseason, we don't know. What we do know is that DA sure as hell wants this team to get better and other GMs can sense that.
Now to your question. If I was New Orleans would I trade Davis? Sure not. But I don't know what's going on in their club, and neither do you or any of us. Do you know why? Because it's not our job. This is Danny job and for C's sake they all communicate. Again I don't know, maybe he is fed up with his teammates, front office, city, fans, his girlfriend or I don't know what and he wants a change. At the same time maybe Pelicans think he is to injury prone, or maybe they thing that he just doesn't have it, or I don't know what other bizzare reason... Maybe they think that Simmons or Ingram is worth it, they sell high, go to tank mode with high percentage possibility of getting one of them with their own and BKN pick.
It necessary doesn't has to be Davis, it could be any other all star franchise player in the league and that was my basic assumption. As the season goes along some players gets fed up, or some clubs gets fed up with some players and they want a change. It is not something that didn't happen before and Danny knows it because he's been around the league long enough to see it all.
It doesn't have to be most of our valuable picks, it can be just two or three, but the basic assumption was to shock other GM's with our offer and make them to think about handing us their best player while receiving great picks and young potential.