Los Angeles Lakers superstar Anthony Davis didn’t exactly ride the high and momentum of becoming an NBA champion in October for this ensuing 2021 NBA season. He wraps up his ninth NBA regular season with career lows outside of his rookie year in free throw attempts, free throw makes, and three-point percentage. And, total career lows in field goal percentage, free throw percentage, free throw attempts, rebounds, and blocks.
On top of a pretty big step back in production, the narrative around Davis this year has once again hovered around the concern over these constant knick-knack injuries he continues to ensure.
With chronic knee, shoulder, back, ankle bang-ups, he’s become the NBA’s operation game man. Though he’s suffered no detrimental ACL or Achilles injury, a likely nail in the coffin for a man his size, his long-term reliability is in pretty serious doubt from multiple angles.
With the great LeBron James aging, fresh off a high ankle ailment of his own that kept him out for 20 plus games, and the franchise needing to turn the keys over to Davis as the ‘man’ and franchise face sooner than preferably perhaps, Lakers fans should be pretty worried.
Anthony Davis only played 35 games for the Los Angeles Lakers in a weird, condensed COVID season, but a career-low nonetheless.
In those 35 games, he did play, a handful were without LeBron by his side with his injury. During that recent stretch, Davis was often unable to keep the Los Angeles Lakers afloat as they’ve unthinkably slipped into the inaugural play-in pool for the postseason.
Reiterating the fact that a big like Davis, though he possesses strong ability on the perimeter, can’t innately impact the game the same way as a pure point guard or combo guard can.
So, how much does all that from this season change my big-picture view of Davis? An undeniable, consensus top-five player in the league for a handful of years now. Well, still young at age 28 but having these long-term question marks, I thought it’d be fun to create a fantasy draft with Davis among the top NBA players 28 years old or younger.
Meaning, this is a hypothetical draft where all the league’s players are available to start your team at their current age, health status, and most importantly, ability. Let’s dive in as I throw on the general manager cap with the obvious selections before Davis given them being much younger and having far less injury history.