How high can Anthony Davis get on the all-time Los Angeles Lakers list?
By Jason Reed
Anthony Davis won the NBA Championship in his first season with the Los Angeles Lakers.
Anthony Davis was the difference. While LeBron James joining the Los Angeles Lakers was the catalyst for championship no. 17, it was the Anthony Davis trade that put the Lakers over the top.
While LeBron James won the NBA Finals MVP, Davis was arguably the best player of the entire NBA Playoffs. Davis finished the 2020 NBA Playoffs with 4.5 win shares accumulated while leading all players in win shares per 48 minutes. His 4.5 win shares were the 19th most ever in the playoffs.
One championship in one year is pretty efficient and every Laker fan is hoping that AD decides to be a Laker for life. We know that he will be in the purple and gold for several more years as he is going to decline his player option and sign an extension.
With AD’s Lakers career started so well I started to wonder: how high could he climb on the all-time Lakers leaderboard? LeBron is great and all, but AD is the one with time to make a serious case to be one of the best in franchise history.
I racked my brain and came up with several checkpoints that would put him a certain place on the all-time list.
If Anthony Davis wins just one championship in five years, he passes:
- Gail Goodrich
- Pau Gasol
- James Worthy
Young Laker fans might be outraged that Pau Gasol is this low on the list but the fact of the matter is that he was the number two on his two title-winning teams and there is so much Lakers’ history before him.
Some fans may disagree with this, but I think AD is so much better of a player than Gasol that if he does not win another championship he should still be regarded higher on the all-time list by a slim margin.
One title absolutely puts him ahead of Gail Goodrich and some may argue against James Worthy, but again, Worthy was not the main attraction. In fact, he was the third star.
I would assume that Davis is an all-star and All-NBA player in each of the next four years. Five All-NBA nods and a championship is more than enough to put him ahead of these players.