With a player of Anthony Davis’ talent, there’s always a fear he could do something unprecedented and forgo a max extension to control his own destiny.

LeBron James did a version of that in 2006 when he took a shorter deal on his first extension to be able to become a free agent in 2010. Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh followed suit as fellow members of the class, while Carmelo Anthony took the money and has been playing catch up on contending for a title ever since. If LeBron were entering his first non-rookie contract knowing what he knows now, there’s little doubt he would bet on himself and opt for complete control on his own destiny that forces his team to put the best team around him by any financial means necessary.

Within a minute of the beginning of free agency, we knew Anthony Davis would hand over his first three seasons of potential freedom to the New Orleans Pelicans in exchange for a five-year, $145 million. That’s an extraordinary amount of money to risk between now and 2017 when he could have become an unrestricted free agent and surely the prudent move.

The one concession made by the Pelicans for the contract is to allow Davis to become a free agent after Year 4 of the extension in 2020.

Instead of potentially joining the free agent class of 2017 that also includes Stephen Curry and Russell Westbrook, Davis is at the mercy of Dell Demps and Tom Benson. 

The Pelicans have been aggressive in building an instant winner around Davis, trading away first round picks for Jrue Holiday and Omer Asik. The trade of Robin Lopez in 2013 led to sending their 2015 first rounder to the Rockets for Asik and now they appear to prefer the former over the latter with them both free agents. 

Davis is the only current member of the Pelicans who was actually acquired through the draft, which hasn’t been a reliable formula for building around a young superstar. Jrue Holiday, Tyreke Evans and Eric Gordon are all relatively young and match Davis’ timeline of contention, but they’re already being paid on non-rookie, nine-figure contracts. The ideal situation for the Pelicans would have been to add Davis’ supporting cast via the draft and then use free agency for a finishing piece to join a perennially MVP candidate’s team before those rookie contract players get paid.

That path became closed when the Pelicans traded Nerlens Noel and their 2014 first rounder to the 76ers for Holiday and then acquire Evans from the Kings in a sign-and-trade.

The nearly full commitment from Davis significantly helps the Pelicans in multiple ways. While there is a clear mandate to be as competitive as possible immediately, the Pelicans don’t need to make any type of desperate, all-in moves that mortgage their future with the specter of Davis potentially leaving in 2017. The Pelicans have a five-year window to become and remain a title contender with Davis before he needs to make another monumental decision. No team in the NBA has a better five-year title window now than the Pelicans simply because they know they’ll have their franchise player under contract, whereas LeBron, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, James Harden, Blake Griffin, etc. all become free agents several years earlier.

Potential free agents also can now commit to the Pelicans knowing Davis isn’t going anywhere. There is very little chance of LeBron leaving Cleveland for a second time, but it’s an existential threat for as long as he keeps signing short-term deals.

The next steps for the Pelicans will be to finally get everyone healthy at once and for Alvin Gentry to move the offense from eighth to top-5 and more important the defense from 22nd to top-10. Davis is such a multidimensional two-way threat that there are a number of ways for the Pelicans to do this and get their title contention ticket by being that good on both sides of the floor.

Grade for Pelicans: A+

For Davis, at least the deal contains an out for 2020. The situation would have had to get tremendously awful for Davis to actually move forward with risking it all for 2017 free agency. Davis gets financial security and continuity with a young team that can still get better the way the Warriors went from good to great.

Davis could have refused to sign without an earlier out, but becoming a free agent at 27 in 2020 won't be a death knell for his title hopes. Teams will surely be sign deals with cap space for 2020 in mind for Davis as they did in 2010 for LeBron and as they have for 2016 for Durant.

Grade for Anthony Davis: A-