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Anthony Davis might be the best basketball player in the world right now. After struggling for 34 points, 9 rebounds, 5 assists and 3 blocks that have yet to fully capture his value for the Lakers in Game 1 of the NBA Finals, it is clear that Davis is rising to another plane as an NBA superstar. .
LeBron James saw this coming. Not just before the Finals started, but before Davis was even a Laker. As he told Yahoo Sports’ Chris Haynes before Game 1, this level of potential was exactly why he wanted the Lakers to do whatever it took to get Davis on his side:
“There is a reason we wanted him here,” James told Yahoo Sports. “He’s a complete gamer, and now the world is seeing what he can do in the games that matter. All he ever wanted was an opportunity. That’s all they all want. And now that you have it, I think you will see it flourish and it has. We still haven’t seen the best of AD. He’s just scratching the surface. “
What scares the rest of the league is that James may not be wrong. There was much talk about the Lakers gutting their young core in the Davis trade, keeping only Kyle Kuzma before re-signing Alex Caruso and selecting Talen Horton-Tucker.
But Davis is also young. He just turned 27 and, in theory, has just entered his prime as a basketball player. We’ve already seen how much he’s improved as a passer over the course of the year – it showed in Game 1, with Davis easily separating Miami’s doubles teams with much more confidence than he would have when the season started, and he’s improved as 3-point shooter, going 17-45 (37.8%) so far in the postseason, which allowed him to rank second in actual shooting percentage (66.4%) among players who made it out of the game. first round. If Davis has really added all three to his game, he becomes even more unstoppable.
But wherever one places him among the best players in the game right now or of all time, there is no question that the playoff career Davis finds himself in is remarkable, as noted by our own Jacob Rude:
– Only three games shooting less than 50% from the field.
– Seven games of 30 points
– Nine double-double– Jacob Rude (@JacobRude) October 1, 2020
And the more advanced numbers also paint the picture that Playoff AD is a very real thing. Throughout the regular season, James was by far the most impactful player in terms of the number of points the Lakers outscored their opponents, and the team was 10.4 points per 100 possessions worse when sitting than when playing. And if you judge strictly by net rating, and you shouldn’t, it’s a limited statistic, the Lakers were actually 1.1 points per 100 possessions. worst with Davis on the ground. Now, there was a lot of noise about that, including Davis playing in many lineups with Rajon Rondo regular season, but it was still a statistic that didn’t look very good for Davis.
In the playoffs, the script has completely changed. The Lakers are never worse than when Davis sits down, being outscored 7.7 points per 100 possessions. When on the court, the Lakers are outperforming their opponents by 13.5 points per 100 possessions, an incredible 21.2-point swing that’s easily the team’s biggest.
To put it more simply: With Davis on the floor, the Lakers are a historically dominant playoff team, and when he sits down, they have the metrics of a swept team.
Now, Davis is a unique type of best player in the world in that he needs capable ball handling around him. Despite every national television broadcast mentioning Davis played point guard in high school and his solid handling for someone his size, he’s never going to be a star along the lines of James or Kevin Durant, for example.
But when Davis has someone who can threaten a defense and feed him, these playoffs have shown how much of a matchup nightmare it can be, blowing up bigger, slower defenders and shooting practice jumpers on the little ones like they’re . traffic cones. And all that not to mention he’s the best defensive player in the league, a versatile threat capable of staying in front of all five positions, and a nightmare as a weak-side shot blocker. In the postseason, he has been the Lakers’ best player on both ends.
But that uniqueness of needing another strong wing alongside him to look like the best player in the world may be why Davis says he wants to follow James to nine more NBA Finals. Nine may be an exaggeration, we have to assume LeBron will age at some point, right? – but every time James starts to decline, Davis has shown during this career that he is more than ready to take over and transition into an MVP candidate in his own right.
For more Lakers talk, subscribe to the Silver Screen and Roll podcast at iTunes, Spotify, Stapler or Google Podcasts. You can follow Harrison on Twitter at @hmfaigen.
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