Any Los Angeles Lakers news about Anthony Davis is going to have fans on the edge of their seat as him being healthy is the only way that the team can make the playoffs from the Play-In Tournament and potentially make some noise.
Davis has not played since February in the last game of the All-Star Break and was expected to be re-evaluated four weeks from his injury. However, updates just weeks after Davis’s injury were not promising and it appeared that he would not return until the playoffs.
However, that timeline has been moved up as Dave McMenamin of ESPN reported that if all goes well, Davis could be returning to action by the first week of April. The last game of the season is on April 10.
This Anthony Davis update is tremendous Lakers news.
While the competition in the play-in is not the best there is almost no chance that the Lakers would be able to win two do-or-die games in a row without Anthony Davis. However, with Davis, the Lakers have such a star power advantage that it is hard to see them not winning.
If Davis were to return for the first play-in game then it may have been a problem. He needs some reps under his legs before the play-in as the team cannot afford a bad game in his first game back if it is with the season on the line. The fact that he can get back to speed with a handful of games is huge for the Lakers.
While the Lakers lost on Wednesday night to the Philadelphia 76ers, the team as a whole has been playing better basketball of late. It only took 70 games for the Lakers to actually start putting in the effort that they should have been putting in all season.
The rotation has been trimmed to remove the extra fat that was weighing the team down and if Davis returns, the role players continue to play well and Russell Westbrook continues his consistent play then who knows how far this team can go.
The most likely outcome is still a first-round playoff exit to the one-seeded Phoenix Suns. However, one thing is for certain, no team wants to play LeBron James and Anthony Davis in the first round of a playoff series. Anything can happen.