Dissecting the Discourse Around Anthony Davis
The discussion surrounding the Lakers star is more polarizing than ever, but where does truth lie?
AHEAD OF THE 2023–2024 season, LeBron James, now the NBA’s all-time leading scorer and arguably the greatest player ever, had many comments about his team. Compared to the previous season, where Russell Westbrook’s misfitting place on the roster stood out, he was more optimistic about his team’s title odds this year. However, one comment, in particular, stood out from the rest.
“[Anthony Davis] is the face [of the franchise],” James said. “You look at all these numbers that surround this facility, all the greats that have come here, and AD is one of them.”
It may have been a transition that took place multiple years longer than expected, but James’ ceding of responsibility as the team’s best player night in and night out to Davis has been in the making.
After the 2021 season, where the Lakers flamed out in the first round, in large part due to injuries to their two superstars, a transition was meant to take place. Jared Dudley, a veteran on that 2021 team, stated that Davis “will take the torch next year.”
Instead, the Lakers pulled off the infamous trade for Russell Westbrook, saw Davis suffer from major injuries yet again, and ended up placing an extreme offensive burden on 37-year-old LeBron James, who nearly won the NBA’s scoring title.
When Davis suffered a foot injury in the following season, amidst the Lakers’ struggle to climb back from a 2–10 start, once again, the burden to carry the Lakers was placed on James. Yet, what has seemed to be lost on critics, fans, and supposed experts are many undeniable truths. Early in the season, while James was struggling with injury and poor play, it was Davis’ elite level of play that helped the Lakers climb back up the standings. Later in the season, as the Lakers vastly improved after the trade deadline, it was again Davis who helped L.A. storm back into the play-in while James was returning from his own foot injury.
Once the playoffs started, a new narrative formed. Once given the “street clothes” moniker, many mocked “AD” for only performing well offensively on alternating days. But to only accept that narrative is to accept a half-truth and ignore many other aspects of Davis and the Lakers’ postseason run.
At the highest level of basketball, in the tier of players who can truly dictate playoff runs and teams’ championship probabilities, discussions of strengths and weaknesses should be far more nuanced than overgeneralizations and headlines. So, what is true and what is not about Lakers star Anthony Davis?
Shifting Narratives and Half-Truths
We salute [LeBron]. People say he’s slowing down, and it’s natural to slow down a little bit. That’s why you have Anthony Davis. That’s where he has to take the torch, and that’s where he will take the torch next year.”
— Former Lakers forward Jared Dudley, 2021
BACK IN 2021, in a preview of the 2021–2022 season, I wrote about the need for Davis to take over as the Lakers’ best player and franchise star, which was true even as they subsequently traded for former all-star Russell Westbrook.
However, as previously mentioned, this did not happen. If there is any criticism of Davis that is fully warranted, it is that with an aging LeBron James, Davis had two of the worst seasons of his career in 2020–2021 and 2021–2022. It’s impossible to tell what the 2021 Lakers or even the 2022 Lakers (assuming a better roster construction) could have done with an in-form Davis and a healthy James, but that possibility was closed as soon as Davis’ form and health became issues.
Davis regressed as a shooter dramatically compared to the Lakers’ championship run. Many focus on his three-point shooting, which peaked at 38.3% in the NBA Bubble, but his mid-range and free-throw percentages also fell. In my 2021 article, I outlined the need for him to return to above-average shooting for his position, but that was not the case for most of 2022.
However, what is often overlooked is that Davis is simply not the same physically as he was in the NBA Bubble. Davis put on added size before the 2022 season, perhaps knowing that the arrival of Russell Westbrook would necessitate him playing at center more than ever.
While in New Orleans, Davis’ speed and agility were almost guard-like. Some of the actions ran for him — pin-downs, cross-screens, etc. — were actions traditionally reserved for guards or wings. He also took on more perimeter-oriented assignments on defense, including guarding players like Kawhi Leonard or Jimmy Butler for long stretches of games, and had more shot attempts from the perimeter.
Nowadays, while still more agile and quick than most centers, Davis’ speed offers less of a marginal advantage over smaller forwards. This speed has been replaced by more strength and physicality when playing in the paint on offense. Additionally, under Darvin Ham’s defensive scheme, which was largely borrowed from Mike Budenholzer in Milwaukee, Davis extensively played as a drop coverage center, a different defensive responsibility than he had in 2020 under Frank Vogel.
The numbers back up these changes:
- In 2020–2021, when 90% of his minutes were at power forward, only 24.3% of Davis’ shots came from within 0–3 feet.
- In 2023, now a full-time center, 34.8% of Davis’ shots were from 0–3 feet, of which he converted at an elite 78.8% clip.
Yet, in these numbers lies a shifting narrative. For years, going back to even his days in New Orleans, fans, analysts, and players begged for Davis to play at center, the position in which many stats suggested he was most effective.
Now, having made a full transition to center, Davis has been one of the most effective and efficient paint scorers in the league (even in a down year in 2022, he still converted a staggering 79.3% of his paint attempts), one of its best rebounders (he would have led the league in rebounds in 2023 had he played more games), and arguably its best defender.
The idea that Davis, who averaged 25.9 points, 12.5 rebounds, and 2.0 blocks per game on a career-best 62.7 TS% as a full-time center, making him one of the most dominant players in the league, hasn’t lived up to expectations is a half-truth. Of course, injuries have marred multiple seasons in his stint in L.A., and he hasn’t recaptured the Kevin Durant-esque shooting touch that he showed in the NBA Bubble. He has, however, molded his game into exactly what former players like Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley have asked from him — yet this transformation has mostly gone unacknowledged.
The 2023 Playoffs: Dominance or Inconsistency?
The discourse surrounding the Lakers’ 2023 playoff run displayed the polarization around Davis.
Was he the team’s best player? Did he only show up every other game? There were many questions, labels, and generalizations made in reaction to the Lakers’ season, and many missed out on the nuances of the sport.
First and foremost, Davis, not James, was the best player for the Lakers throughout the postseason. The Lakers’ success, both in the postseason and in the regular season following the trade deadline, was built on their defense, and the heart of their success was AD.
He was, for the most part, a barometer for their offense. When he scored well, the Lakers offense generally did well too. Furthermore, even with LeBron James on the court, the Lakers’ performance on offense and defense tended to collapse in non-Davis lineups, further showing Davis’ impact. On/off numbers can suffer from small sample size, but the stats clearly showed that, whether or not he was scoring well, Davis, and not James, consistently raised the Lakers’ offensive ceiling the most.
Also, while Davis was not the same volume scorer that he was in the 2020 playoffs, I’d argue that the Lakers’ roster construction didn’t necessitate that Davis and James dominate as scorers as much as they did in the NBA Bubble.
With scorers like D’Angelo Russell, Austin Reaves, and even Rui Hachimura, the shot distribution of the 2023 Lakers was always bound to be different from the 2020 Lakers based solely on roster construction. Even then, Davis, who has had his struggles as a shooter in the years after 2020, shot 50% from 3–10 feet, 40.8% from 3–10 feet, 58.8% from 10–16 feet, and 85.2% on free throws in the 2023 postseason.
These numbers are eerily similar to his efficiency in the 2020 playoffs, only now with a shot chart that was skewed to have more attempts closer to the rim — just as critics, analysts, and fans had been asking for.
But while Davis was elite offensively for stretches in the postseason, a new narrative formed about his supposed inconsistency due to the disparity in his production between his odd and even numbered games. Undoubtedly, some of his performances left something to be desired — a 4/15 performance in Game 2 of the WCF and an 11-point performance against the Warriors stand out. Yet, the suggestion that Davis only played well in half of his team’s games (the odd numbered games) is just untrue.
In some cases, a narrative can be partially true and partially false. Davis indeed had poor offensive performances in all three Game 2s he played in during the 2023 postseason. However, it can also be true that in many even-numbered games, like Game 6 against Memphis or Game 6 against Golden State, Davis was so brilliant defensively, and the Lakers were performing so well offensively, that they didn’t need a huge offensive outing from AD to comfortably win those two closeout games.
In fact, until facing the Denver Nuggets in the Conference Finals, Davis’ presence as a rim protector led the Grizzlies and Warriors to search desperately for solutions to get him away from the basket — on offense and defense.
Davis led the playoffs in contested shots, including being 4th in contesting the most 3-point shots (as a center) while being 6th in loose balls recovered and averaging 1.4 steals and 3.1 blocks per game.
Davis’ defensive dominance was so profound that the Golden State Warriors, infamous for their free-flowing, movement-oriented offense, spent all of Game 4 of the semifinals running stagnant pick-and-rolls to try and lure AD away from the paint. Even when Davis was switched against Steph Curry twice with that game on the line, he won out both times.
The Lakers ended the postseason with the 4th best defensive rating, 2nd among teams who made it into the conference finals. Until facing Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets, no strategy — even for guards like Steph Curry and Ja Morant — could effectively neutralize Davis’ defensive presence.
NOW HEALTHY TO begin this season, many expected more dominance from Davis. There was a tangible buzz about a potential MVP-level campaign from AD in this coming season.
Yet, all it took was one game for the overgeneralized narratives and half-truths to return. Davis had a poor second half in the season opener against Denver, going scoreless after a 17-point first half. His struggle, at 6'10", to deal with Nikola Jokic remains.
However, narratives rarely ever shift back to reality. In the 4 games he’s played since the opener in Denver, he’s averaged 28.25 points, 14.25 rebounds, and 3.25 blocks per game. Additionally, his free-throw shooting is an elite 85.4% to begin this season, and after being publicly challenged to shoot more threes by Darvin Ham, he has shot what would be by far a career-high 42.9% on threes, albeit on low volume.
Furthermore, what has gone under the radar is that, in an effort to incorporate more 2-big lineups this season, Davis is back to taking on the wing assignments on defense that made him so versatile in the Lakers’ championship run.
First, Davis and Christian Wood were imperative in slowing down Kevin Durant in the Lakers’ comeback win over the Phoenix Suns. With injuries to Jarred Vanderbilt and Rui Hachimura, as well as James’ age-related decline in foot speed, it becomes that much more important that Davis regain the perimeter defense he displayed in 2020. Secondly, while LeBron James’ historic performance in the Lakers’ most recent overtime win over the Clippers rightfully drew the most headlines, Davis quietly had effective stretches guarding Kawhi Leonard — the type of defensive assignment he had largely given up while transitioning to a full-time center role.
So far this season, Davis has been the focal point for the Lakers, offensively and defensively. He’s certainly not a perfect player, but with LeBron James’ elite offensive play in the fourth quarter and overtime this season, there is still reason to be optimistic about the Lakers’ chances in the postseason. If the team’s defensive performance is still elite come May, and Davis and James’ shot-making is adequate enough to compete with other high-powered attacks, the Lakers have a chance to win the title.
I think the Lakers, like most teams in the NBA, still need to find an answer to slow down the Nuggets’ offense to sharply increase their championship odds. But against nearly all of the other 28 teams in the league, Davis’ defense and paint presence give the Lakers a tangible edge that can make up for their deficiencies elsewhere.
It remains to be seen if James will continue to uplift and empower AD as the face of this Lakers team. But if their win against the Suns was any indication, this team will go as far as their best player, Davis, will take them.
“We don’t give a s — about criticism about AD,” James said. “We don’t care. Nothing bothers us. AD doesn’t care. I don’t know if guys have figured that out. AD does not care. He’s not on social media, so he doesn’t see none of the crap. He rarely talks, unless it’s to us, so we don’t give a s — — about it, and he definitely doesn’t. He just goes out and does his job, and we’re happy to have AD.”
Statistics via nba.com and Basketball Reference
