‘Hostage justice’: How Japan secures confessions and convictions

Tokyo, Japan – It is a bare, unheated room whose minimal interior details are confined to a bed, a toilet, an iron-barred window and a door without a handle.

The place that Carlos Ghosn now calls home is a far cry from the luxury residences and five-star hotels he was accustomed to as the globe-trotting chairman of Nissan and one of the world’s most powerful automotive executives.

Instead, Ghosn’s world is limited – for the indefinite future – to a simple cell at the Tokyo Detention House, a white 12-storey complex in a northern suburb of the sprawling Japanese megalopolis.

It is here that the ousted Nissan chief has already been held for more than two months after officers dramatically boarded his executive jet to arrest him after the plane landed at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on November 19.

And it was from his solitary cell that the former auto industry titan also resigned as chief executive and chairman of Renault, paving the way for his successors Jean-Dominique Senard and Thierry Bollore to take the helm.

Confess for bail

But it is not only Ghosn’s unexpected fall from grace or the allegations of financial misconduct that have attracted global attention since his arrest – as his detention drags on indefinitely, the case has also cast a critical spotlight on Japan‘s judicial system.

Last week, Ghosn’s second request for bail was rejected at the Tokyo District Court, despite his promises not to flee the country, hand over his three passports and wear an electronic ankle tag at all times.

Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn ‘arrested for misconduct’

A reason for the denial was not provided in court but the outcome was unsurprising to experts of the legal system in Japan where bail is rarely granted to defendants without a confession.

Ghosn has vehemently declared his innocence against formal charges of under-reporting his salary for eight years through March 2018 and temporarily transferring personal financial losses to Nissan’s books.

The result? In the absence of a confession, Ghosn – who has already lost seven kilos in weight due to his new prison diet of rice and barley, according to his wife – is widely expected to remain in custody until his trial commences.

His detention has placed the Japanese criminal justice system under international scrutiny – in particular, the practice of detaining suspects without charges for up to 23 days before re-arresting them on separate allegations. Many remain in custody until they either confess or their case comes to trial.

A court sketch shows Ghosn during a court hearing earlier this month. It was his first public appearance since November. [Kyodo via Reuters]

‘Hostage justice’

It is this apparent peculiarity of Japan’s judicial system – dubbed “hostage justice” – that some critics have tied directly to the nation’s often quoted statistic that more than 99 per cent of cases that go to trial result in a conviction.

“It’s all about creating an environment that facilitates confessions,” explained Colin Jones, professor of law at Doshisha University in Kyoto. “Under the code of criminal procedure, pre-charge detention is an investigative tool.

“So at an early stage, the detention is in order to facilitate interrogation by investigating authorities who have presumed that someone is guilty.

“Japanese prosecutors rely very heavily on confessions to ensure convictions – and having one in most cases is how they maintain their very high conviction rate.”

Jones expects Ghosn to be detained through trial.

Calls for changes

It is clear that Ghosn’s lengthy detention is far from an isolated case – even if it is among the most high profile in terms of international media attention in recent years.

Official court requests by public prosecutors for permission to detain arrested suspects have soared in recent years, from 72,597 in 1990 to 105,669 cases in 2016, according to a 2017 white paper on attorneys published by the Japan Federation of Bar Associations (JFBA).

While permission rates for detention have dropped fractionally from 99.8 per cent to 96.6 per cent within the same timeframe, the figures show how the outcome generally remains overwhelmingly in support of detention.

“The permission rate for detention is going down slowly but it remains very high,” said Yuichi Kaido, the president of the JFBA’s criminal detention committee.

“In 2017, 62 percent of bail requests were also permitted. This also seems high although maybe 10 or 20 years ago it was less than half,” he added.

Kaido said that the JFBA has been campaigning for changes to Japan’s criminal detention system for 40 years – but change has been slow and inefficient.

“Many lawyers do not support the system but they don’t object to it either – so the voice of opposition is very weak,” he said. “The most important aspect is that in Japan, the period prosecutors can detain suspects is too long – 23 days compared to 24 hours or 48 hours in many other countries.”

Among countless examples is the case of Yasunori Kagoike, the former president of a private school company, who was detained in 2017 alongside his wife for 10 months on suspicion of fraud in relation to a land sale in a major scandal linked to the prime minister’s wife.

Sun-Dye, a musician based in Japan, was held for a similar 10-month period without bail after being arrested on suspicion of stealing 10,000 yen ($91.41) from a store, before a trial acquitted him.

Mark Karpeles, of Mt Gox, bows as he attends a news conference after a trial on charges of embezzlement in Tokyo in July 2017. A court is expected to reach a verdict in March [Toru Hanai/Reuters]

As the situation of Ghosn – born in Brazil to Lebanese parents, and also having French citizenship – exemplifies, it’s not only Japanese nationals who are at risk of lengthy detentions.

Mark Karpeles, a Japan-based French citizen who was chief executive of the now-bankrupt bitcoin exchange Mt.Gox, spent close to a year in custody after his arrest in 2015, before being indicted for embezzling around 340 million yen ($3.1m), a charge which carries a 10-year sentence.

His trial ended in December, with the verdict expected in March. Karpeles denies wrongdoing.

‘Shame not pride’

“Lengthy pretrial detention allows prosecutors to isolate and pressure detainees into signing a confession,” said professor Jeffrey Kingston, director of Asian studies at Temple University in Tokyo. “Detainees who claim innocence are subject to prolonged detention until they implicate themselves. Bail is extremely rare for anyone who does not confess.”

Albeit slow, opposition to the system seems to be growing – not only internationally, thanks to cases such as Ghosn’s – but also within Japan.

“This practice is not widely acceptable,” said Kingston. “The local media, civil society and legal advocates have drawn attention to extensive prosecutorial abuses and coerced confessions leading to wrongful convictions. From this perspective, the 99-plus per cent conviction rate is a matter of shame not pride.”

The centre where Ghosn is held. It is common for suspects in Japan to spend months in detention before their trial [Eugene Hoshiko/AP Photo]

Along for calling for widespread reform – in particular for the abolition of lengthy pre-charge detentions, as in the case of Ghosn – the JFBA has also urged that interrogations be recorded.

“The current Japanese criminal justice system has various problems in light of the constitution and international human rights law,” the organisation said in an online statement.

“The JFBA has been demanding the eradication of ‘hostage justice’ and the reform of such pre-sentencing detention system …, introduction of the pre-indictment bail system, and the establishment of measures to secure a suspect’s appearance, and other activities,” it added.

For Ghosn – who faces the distinct possibility of turning 65 in his Tokyo cell in March, with many more months of incarceration to potentially follow – such reforms could clearly not happen fast enough.

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Exclusive: Trump EPA won’t limit 2 toxic chemicals in drinking water

The EPA building — While EPA has decided against a drinking water limit, the draft chemical plan does include a decision to list those two chemicals as hazardous under the Superfund law.

Energy and Environment

The decision could complicate acting agency chief Andrew Wheeler’s hopes for Senate confirmation.

The Trump administration will not set a drinking water limit for two toxic chemicals that are contaminating millions of Americans’ tap water, two sources familiar with the forthcoming decision told POLITICO.

The expected move is yet another sign of the administration’s reluctance to aggressively deal with the chemicals, which have been used for decades in products such as Teflon-coated cookware and military firefighting foam and are present in the bloodstreams of an estimated 98 percent of Americans. And it comes less than a year after the White House and the Environmental Protection Agency faced criticism for delaying publication of a health study on the chemicals, which a White House aide had warned could trigger a “public relations nightmare.”

Story Continued Below

EPA’s decision means the chemicals will remain unregulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act, according to sources familiar with a still-unreleased draft plan that acting administrator Andrew Wheeler signed off on in late December. That means utilities will face no federal requirements for testing for and removing the chemicals from drinking water supplies, although several states have pursued or are pursuing their own limits.

The decision could complicate Wheeler’s confirmation to lead the agency on a full-time basis. Both Republicans and Democrats have pressed EPA to do more to keep the chemicals out of drinking water and raised alarms about past political interference from the administration.

The chemicals, known as PFOA and PFOS, have been linked to kidney and testicular cancer, hypertension and other ailments. Major chemical companies like 3M as well as the Defense Department would face billions of dollars in liability from aggressive efforts to regulate and clean up the chemical, which has contaminated groundwater near hundreds of military bases and chemical plants.

While EPA has decided against a drinking water limit, the draft chemical plan includes a decision to list those two chemicals as hazardous under the Superfund law, according to the two sources, a move would help force polluters to pay for cleanup.

The agency said it would not discuss the plan’s contents until it is made public.

“The action plan is currently undergoing interagency review,” EPA spokesperson John Konkus said by email.

It is unclear when the plan will be released, but it could come soon now that the partial government shutdown is over. During his confirmation hearing earlier this month, Wheeler told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that the plan had initially been scheduled for release in late January — but he refused to promise that it would set a drinking water standard for the chemical.

“I cannot make that commitment,” Wheeler told Democratic Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware.

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), whose state has a major PFOA contamination problem, also pressed Wheeler on how he would handle the issue.

“We are going to be recommending and moving forward on a number of different areas under a number of different statutes,” Wheeler told her. He specifically cited the EPA’s Superfund toxic cleanup program as well as a recently revised regulatory framework for chemical safety.

The committee is scheduled to vote on Wheeler’s nomination Feb. 5; Republicans have a one-seat majority on the panel. In the full Senate, Wheeler also likely would have to allay concerns from Republicans in other states that have experienced major problems with the class of chemicals, including North Carolina.

Federal scientists last summer concluded that PFOA and PFOS pose dangers at extremely low concentrations in a health assessment that POLITICO reported Trump administration officials initially sought to block.

EPA-mandated testing has found the chemicals at unsafe levels in at least 16 million Americans’ tap water, but activists say the problem is even more widespread.

When an advocacy group reanalyzed federal monitoring data to include lower levels of contamination, it estimated that as many as 110 million Americans may be drinking water with levels of the chemical that could cause harm. The problem is particularly acute near military bases, more than 400 of which the Pentagon suspects to be contaminated with the chemicals.

In order to regulate a chemical under the Safe Drinking Water Act, EPA must show not only that the contaminant is dangerous, but also that setting a limit offers “a meaningful opportunity for health risk reduction” and that doing so is financially justified.

Congress established these requirements in amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act in 1996. They have proven to be major hurdles to new regulations: EPA has not regulated a new contaminant under the drinking water law since then.

EPA issued a voluntary health advisory for PFOA and PFOS in 2016, recommending a lifetime limit in drinking water of 70 parts per trillion for both chemicals. A handful of states have established their own drinking water limits, some of which are significantly stricter than the EPA guidance. But other states have lacked the scientific expertise to act on their own, and have struggled to explain to their residents why their limits differ from those in neighboring states. Public health advocates say these are reasons a federal drinking water standard is necessary.

But some state and local officials, as well as rural water utilities, have argued against a federal drinking water standard. They say the problem is localized and that utilities across the country should not have to pay to test their water if they are unlikely to find the chemicals.

The Trump administration has generally pushed to have states take the lead in environmental regulations, and has taken some steps that suggested it may prefer that approach to setting a federal drinking water limit. For instance, officials at EPA opted to release only toxicity information for two other chemicals in the same class, called GenX and PFBS, and left it to the states to use that information to decide what a safe limit is.

A number of the political appointees at EPA come from industry backgrounds, including the No. 2 political official in the chemical safety office, who previously worked for the chemical industry’s main lobbying group. The No. 2 official in the agency’s Office of Research and Development came to the agency last fall from Koch Industries.

Industry groups, including the American Chemistry Council, have backed the Trump administration’s work on the class of chemicals, expecting that it will be as industry-friendly as they can hope for.

The Trump administration’s approach to PFOA and PFOS has also been shaped by the Defense Department, which faces potentially massive liability for the hundreds of contaminated sites it owns around the country.

Internal emails show that Pentagon officials last year raised alarm with the White House over a draft study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that found the chemicals cause harm at far lower levels than EPA had said were safe. And POLITICO reported earlier this month that the Defense Department sought to hire a scientist with a reputation for downplaying chemicals’ risks to work on PFOA and PFOS, even though his prior work on the chemicals was so controversial that even Republicans had opposed his nomination for an EPA post.

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Huawei charged with fraud and money laundering

It’s only Monday, but the Department of Justice just came out swinging.

In a Jan. 28 afternoon press conference, law enforcement officials announced a series of charges against Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei ranging from fraud to money laundering. The charges follow the Dec. 1 arrest of Huawei CFO Wanzhou Meng, who faces the possibility of decades in jail.

“As charged in the indictment, Huawei and its Chief Financial Officer broke U.S. law and have engaged in a fraudulent financial scheme that is detrimental to the security of the United States,” Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said in a press release announcing the charges. “They willfully conducted millions of dollars in transactions that were in direct violation of the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations, and such behavior will not be tolerated.”

The 13-count indictment names Huawei, two Huawei affiliates, and Huawei CFO Wanzhou Meng. Meng specifically is charged with wire fraud and bank fraud, as well as conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud.

Department of Commerce secretary Wilbur Ross added to the condemnation. “Lying, cheating, and stealing are not suitable corporate growth strategies,” he noted at the press conference.

At the heart of the case against Huawei is the claim that the company misled regulators about its business dealings with Iran, with Meng allegedly playing a key role in that effort.

“As part of this scheme to defraud,” alleges the DOJ press release, “Meng allegedly personally made a presentation in August 2013 to an executive of one of Huawei’s major banking partners in which she repeatedly lied about the relationship between Huawei and Skycom.”

Notably, the government’s investigation is still ongoing.

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This plating account for Fig Newtons is genuinely chef’s kiss

Chicken Nuggets Fig Newtons

Image: Courtesy of julia bell

By Heather Dockray2019-01-28 22:06:08 UTC

For all their complex flavor, Fig Newtons are a deeply stigmatized cookie-cake hybrid. It’s the supermarket staple for “unhip” baby boomers, and one of the most under-appreciated snacks in the vending machine.

Some people are able to find love in their hearts for this ancient treat. Julia Bell, a 22-year-old college student has broken the code of silence around Fig Newtons and declared her love for the delicacy with her Fig Newtons plating account, @Fignudes.

The account treats Newtons like it’s part of haute cuisine, not some culinary underclass.

“I think they are pretty stigmatized,” Bell told Mashable. “They have a weird demographic — the only people who really eat them are really young people and really old people. I hadn’t had one in years in early elementary school before I started living with this girl a few summer ago. She started buying them … [and even though] they have this sad reputation as a disgruntled cookie, they have a more complex flavor than a lot of other convenience foods. They can pair with a lot of other flavors, savory and sweet — compared to Pop-Tarts, which is all sweet.”

Bell decided to start plating her Fig Newtons precisely because of their complexity. In her mind, they deserved to be plated just as much as other, high-end food.

“You see so many plates of really exquisitely prepared food on social media. It was such a stark contrast to everything I was eating while living on a student budget and trying to cook for myself. So I thought it would be funny to make what I was eating look what I was seeing online.”

On Fignudes, Newtons aren’t just plated. They’re garnished. They’re herb-crusted and made into weeknight recipes. They’re aromatized, whatever the hell that means.

They’re beautiful.

Bell takes all the photos herself. By posting her account to the Culinary Plating subreddit, she was able to accrue almost 5,000 followers in just a few months. Sometimes, Bell says, her account makes it to the top of the subreddit. Other times, it’s labeled as spam because folks can’t believe it’s real.

For Bell, it’s all very humorous and all very real. The account is both a send-up of food culture as it is a celebration of it. Fig Newtons, she claims, are just as removed and intangible as other more traditionally upscale foods. Most people don’t have access to haute cuisine. And most people don’t understand the inscrutable chemicals that go into convenience store treats.

They’re both equally removed from regular people:

“A really highbrow plate of food — you won’t even know what it is,” Bell argues. “The ingredients have been so worked over, the language is a little inaccessible. But that’s also true of lowbrow food. If you were to look at a Pop-Tart, you couldn’t pick out many food elements of it.”

Folks, I encourage you to cast aside your prejudices and reconsider the Newton. It’s more than a cookie. It’s more than a cake. And screw it, it’s more than a cookie-cake hybrid. The Fig Newton a work of goddamn art, everyone, and finally we have the Instagram account to prove it.

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Pelicans: Anthony Davis Traded on ‘Our Timeline;’ Asked NBA to Enforce Tampering

PORTLAND, OR - JANUARY 18: Anthony Davis #23 of the New Orleans Pelicans looks on during the game against the Portland Trail Blazers on January 18, 2019 at the Moda Center Arena in Portland, Oregon. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2019 NBAE (Photo by Sam Forencich/NBAE via Getty Images)

Sam Forencich/Getty Images

After receiving a trade request from star big man Anthony Davis, the New Orleans Pelicans responded Monday in a statement posted on Twitter:

“This past weekend, Anthony Davis’ representatives informed us that Anthony does not wish to sign a contract extension with our team and subsequently has requested a trade. Although we are disappointed in this decision, our organization’s top priority is to bring an NBA championship to our city and build our team for long-term success. Relative to specific talks of a trade, we will do this on our terms and our timeline. One that makes the most sense for our team and it will not be dictated by those outside of our organization. We have also requested the League to strictly enforce the tampering rules associated with this transaction.”

Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN reported earlier Monday that Davis’ agent, Rich Paul, told the team Davis wouldn’t sign an extension and has requested a trade. However, Paul “did not place pressure” on the organization to make a deal before the NBA’s Feb. 7 trade deadline, per Wojnarowski.

The 25-year-old is signed through at least 2019-20. He can become a free agent in July 2020 if he declines his player option for the 2020-21 season.

The Pelicans’ timetable could help to determine Davis’ future, especially since the team is in no rush to make a move.

While the Boston Celtics are a logical landing spot for Davis based on the assets they could offer, they can’t acquire Davis this season without trading Kyrie Irving. Both Irving and Davis are signed to designated rookie extensions, and teams can only acquire one such player via trade. Thus, the Celtics couldn’t trade for Davis until July, when Irving figures to decline his 2019-20 player option and become a free agent.

Per Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports, the Celtics aren’t a preferred destination for Davis, but the New York Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers are potentially ready to make an offer.

On the other hand, contenders around the league could prefer to trade for Davis before the deadline to ensure they have an impact player this season. As Wojnarowski noted, those organizations could then flip Davis this offseason to recoup assets if they don’t believe he’ll re-sign with them in 2020.

In the meantime, the Pelicans have issued a warning against any form of tampering that could affect the market.

The NBA already sent a memo to teams and players in December that “warned of consequences for orchestrated tampering campaigns.” This came in response to Lakers star LeBron James saying it “would be amazing” to play with Davis, per Dave McMenamin of ESPN.com.

Any additional comments potentially could result in penalties for organizations involved.

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US charges China’s Huawei, top executive with bank fraud

The Justice Department unsealed criminal charges on Monday against Chinese tech giant Huawei, two of its subsidiaries and a top executive, who are accused of misleading banks about the company’s business and violating US sanctions.

The company is also charged in a separate case with stealing trade secrets from T-Mobile, according to federal prosecutors.

Prosecutors are seeking to extradite the company’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, and allege she committed fraud by misleading banks about Huawei’s business dealings in Iran. She was arrested on December 1 in Canada.

US prosecutors accused Huawei of using a Hong Kong shell company to sell equipment in Iran in violation of US sanctions. Huawei had done business in Iran through a Hong Kong company called Skycom and alleged that Meng mislead US banks into believing the two companies were separate, according to the Justice Department.

Huawei is the world’s biggest supplier of network gear used by phone and internet companies and has long been seen as a front for spying by the Chinese military or security services.

Prosecutors also allege that Huawei stole trade secrets, including the technology behind a robotic device that T-Mobile used to test smartphones, prosecutors said.

A jury in Seattle ruled that Huawei had misappropriated the robotic technology from T-Mobile’s lab in Washington state.

The Huawei case has set off a diplomatic spat with the three country, which has threatened to complicate ties between the US and Canada.

President Donald Trump said he would get involved in the Huawei case if it would help produce a trade agreement with China and told Reuters news agency in an interview in December that he would “intervene if I thought it was necessary.”

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Miley Cyrus, Mark Ronson, And Miley’s Earrings Performed ‘Nothing Breaks Like A Heart’ On Ellen

Will Heath/NBC/NBCU Photobank

By Trey Alston

In honor of Ellen DeGeneres’s birthday on January 26, Miley Cyrus and Mark Ronson delivered a lavish, bubbly performance of “Nothing Breaks Like A Heart” on the Monday (January 28) episode of Ellen.

Miley belted out the funky chords and Ronson strummed the acoustic guitar like a madman while bright pink and blue neon lights flashed angrily in the background. But the most memorable aspect of the performance was Miley’s enormous earrings; they featured a picture of Ellen’s famous “Yep, I’m Gay” cover for Time magazine in 1997. The entire performance is the kind of gift that we all can only dream of.

Ellen herself was ecstatic after the performance ended. She walked on stage and showered the pair with praise, thanking them for performing for her birthday after she personally asked them to.

“Nothing Breaks Like A Heart” will appear on Ronson’s forthcoming fifth studio album, Late Night Feelings. If you dug this Ronson and Cyrus performance, you should check out when the duo hit Saturday Night Live back in December. Ronson and Cyrus together, on any track, for any performance, create a mesmerizing experience.

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Time’s Up pushes Hollywood to hire female directors with #4PercentChallenge

It’s about damn time this changes

Image: Getty ImagesSonia Recchia/Getty Images

By Jess Joho2019-01-28 21:19:28 UTC

Over the past year hashtags like #MeToo and #TimesUp made waves in Hollywood. Yet the reality remains that #OscarsSoMale was trending once again this year in large response to the all-male nominees picked for best director.

Last year, Greta Gerwig’s nomination made her only the fifth woman in history to ever get recognized in category.

But the #4PercentChallenge demands change, not only for 2020 but to the fundamental systems keeping women out of leadership roles like directing. Organized by Time’s Up and the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, the hashtag already has big names committing to announcing projects with at least one female director within the next 18 months.

Kicked off by Tessa Thompson at Sundance on Friday, Jan. 25, plenty more stars followed suit over the weekend to all take up the challenge, including Oscar-nominated Get Out director Jordan Peele, Captain Marvel‘s Brie Larson, Crazy Rich Asians star Constance Wu, Star Wars director J.J. Abrams, and Reese Witherspoon.

The 4% statistic comes from the Annenberg Initiative’s finding that, “only 4% of the top 100 studio films were directed by women.”

This isn’t for lack of talent, either. The cycle that gives so few women opportunities to take on leadership roles has perpetuated itself for too long in Hollywood. Women are given such few chances to prove themselves as directors, which gives studios the excuse to not hire them on the basis of lack of experience.

The new initiative hopes to pressure those studios into breaking down the systemic gatekeeping. And with the recent finding that women-led entertainment performs better at the box office, there’s ample incentive to meet that challenge.

I am always glad that days like this afford us to have a conversation about the lack of women getting nominated for big awards. Remember this is not about whether a film is good, cause Ahem- Green Book, Bohemian Rhapsody, Vice – but it’s about access and opportunity.

— Melissa Silverstein (@melsil) January 22, 2019

But access and opportunity aren’t the only challenge women directors face when it comes to getting their work recognized in Hollywood. In a Twitter thread, Women and Hollywood founder Melissa Silverstein called out the industry after the 2019 Oscar nominations were announced.

She pointed to how even when women do manage to get directing jobs, they are often given far less resources to both make their films and also campaign them for awards season.

There were great, critically-acclaimed films in 2018 directed by women, like Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here and Marielle Heller’s Can You Ever Forgive Me. And there’s logistical reasons to why they’re not being considered by most major award committees.

Hopefully, social media initiatives like the #4PercentChallenge and #RememberTheLadies will begin the work tearing down these barriers.

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This 10-year-old won a science fair by ‘proving’ Tom Brady is a cheater

Mashable, MashBash and Mashable House are among the federally registered trademarks of Ziff Davis, LLC and may not be used by third parties without explicit permission.

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NBA Rumors: Kyrie Irving’s Future with Celtics Doubted amid Anthony Davis Links

Boston Celtics' Kyrie Irving brings the ball up court during the second quarter of an NBA basketball game against the Miami Heat Monday, Jan. 21, 2019, in Boston. (AP Photo/Winslow Townson)

Winslow Townson/Associated Press

While the Boston Celtics could be dreaming about adding Anthony Davis this offseason to team with Kyrie Irving, they could end up with neither superstar next season.

According to Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports, “There’s a growing belief of uncertainty that Kyrie Irving will re-sign with Boston.”

Haynes also reported that the Celtics are “not a top target” for Davis.

The center’s agent requested a trade Monday and informed the New Orleans Pelicans that he would not be signing an extension with the team, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.com.

While the Pelicans will be free to trade with nearly any team before the Feb. 7 deadline, the Celtics are out of the running because both Davis and Irving have signed designated rookie extensions and a team can’t trade for two of those players.

The Celtics would be allowed to make a deal in the offseason, however, once Irving becomes a free agent.

The hope was that the point guard would re-sign with the team after declining his $21.3 million option, especially after announcing it was his intention to do so in front of a raucous crowd in October:

Boston Celtics @celtics

“If you guys will have me back, I plan on re-signing here.” – @KyrieIrving https://t.co/0wDLzuv5WL

Irving has been everything the Celtics have hoped of him on the court this year, averaging 23.7 points per game to go with career highs in assists (6.9) and rebounds per game (4.8). He is headed to the All-Star Game for the sixth time in seven seasons and is even getting MVP buzz for his efforts.

However, there has seemingly been some friction of late, including calling out his teammates in the press.

“The young guys don’t know what it takes to be a championship-level team,” Irving told reporters earlier in January.

With Boston apparently not a top destination for Davis, if Irving leaves in free agency, an organization with high expectations could take a major step backward.

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