1. Anthony Davis
The Los Angeles Lakers will handle Anthony Davis’ workload carefully as well but he is going to be asked to do more than LeBron James. He is just entering the prime years of his career and can handle the workload of a normal NBA season despite the shorter offseason.
LeBron’s limited workload is not going to be the only reason why Davis is the best player on the Lakers, though. Davis will continue getting better next season, taking that next step (as I already mentioned) into being a bonafide top-five guy.
We already saw it in the NBA Playoffs. While he cooled down a tad in the Finals, Davis was absolutely dominant for the Lakers in the playoffs. If the Finals MVP was given out for the collective playoff effort then the award would have gone to AD, not LeBron.
Davis averaged 27.7 points, 9.7 rebounds and 1.4 blocks per game in the playoffs and hit the defining shot of the season — a game-winner against Denver that gave the Lakers a 2-0 lead in the Western Conference Finals.
It made it even better that the Lakers were wearing their Black Mamba jerseys and AD shouted KOBE after making the shot.
Davis led the NBA Playoffs in win shares with 4.5 accumulated in 21 games. To put it into historical perspective, only five players have posted a better win-shares per 48 minutes with at least 500 minutes played.
LeBron James, Michael Jordan (twice), Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain. Yeah, Anthony Davis is pretty good.