What is the answer? Is Anthony Davis the best basketball player in the world?
Is AD the best basketball player in the NBA? Maybe.
After the season is over, many Los Angeles Lakers haters will say that LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and the rest of the Purple and Gold got lucky during the postseason. They’ll say the stars aligned for the Lakers, and they had an easy path towards the title (yes, I’m asserting the Lakers will win the title).
That’s revisionist history, though. The Lakers’ first-round foe, the Portland Trailblazers, were one of the best eighth seeds ever. Many experts thought they were a squad that would beat the Lakers behind the guard play of Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum.
The Lakers’ second-round opponent, the Houston Rockets, was more than just a solid team. Houston was incredibly fast and athletic, and James Harden, Russell Westbrook, and the rest of the Rockets squad could have easily made it to the finals if they hadn’t had to face the Purple and Gold.
The Denver Nuggets were a great squad. Nikola Jocic and Jamaal Murry are both superstars, and the rest of the Nuggets roster is stocked full of tough-nosed role players. There’s a reason the Nuggets beat the Clippers in the second round.
The finals have just begun, but Miami is no joke. They’re a very well-coached squad with two great players in Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo.
The Lakers haven’t gotten lucky this postseason. They’re just an excellent team that has physically demoralized their opponents on both sides of the ball, mostly behind LeBron James and Anthony Davis.
So, yeah, maybe Anthony Davis is the best basketball player in the world. Or perhaps LeBron James is slightly better.
One thing is obvious, Anthony Davis and LeBron James are the two best players in the NBA. And no pairing them together does not take away from their greatness, just like pairing Kobe and Shaq or Curry and Durant did not make them any less impressive.
If you think LeBron is the best player in the world, you could be right. Or if you think Anthony Davis is the best player in the world, you also could be right. Either way, it’s good to be a Lakers fan these days.