Can Anthony Davis elevate his game even higher?
With the promise of an enhanced role on offense and his defense already being among the very best in the league, the stage is set for Anthony Davis to have one of his best seasons yet.
Welcome to our Lakers Season Preview Series! For the next several weeks, we’ll be writing columns every weekday, breaking down the biggest questions we have about every player the Lakers added this offseason. Today, we take a look at Anthony Davis.
Very early on in the aftermath of the trade that brought Anthony Davis to the Lakers five years ago, I was scrolling Twitter and came across a tweet that has always stuck with me. I cannot remember who posted it, but it was a highlight reel of AD’s time in New Orleans, with the simple caption “You let LeBron James get this dude?”
The premise was simple, of course. For all that the high-level young talent and future potential — both in young players and in draft capital — the Lakers gave up to trade for Davis, the player they received back was an actualized version of what Lakers fans hoped those assets could one day become.
Said another way, AD was that dude.
And in his first season with the Lakers, he reiterated how great he was, fulfilling his promise as that former No. 1 overall pick billed as a generational talent with a playoff run that still seems surreal in its culmination of an NBA title. The image of LeBron and AD arm in arm, goggles askew as they celebrate the championship they won together is one that will live in my mind forever.
Since that season, however, Davis has dealt with a myriad of nagging and untimely injuries that have mostly left him and the Lakers unable to recapture that glory. Davis has still had strong seasons and put up some excellent numbers, but the number of games he’s missed combined with the team’s struggles to escape the bottom half of the playoff bracket have left AD, in particular, a bit out of the conversations of the best players in the game.
In the last 18 months, though, that narrative has shifted back towards where it belongs and it’s because of the level at which Davis has been playing.
After coming back from a foot injury in the 2022-23 season, Davis has played stellar basketball, helping to lead the Lakers to the Western Conference Finals and then, this past regular season and playoffs, putting together an impressive stretch of individual dominance that landed him 2nd Team All-NBA, 1st Team All-Defense, and then a first round matchup against Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets in which Davis looked like the best player on the court for extended stretches of multiple games.
And then this summer, AD shined as a crunch-time stalwart for Team USA in their run to the gold medal in France. Relieved of the burden of being a go-to scorer, Davis dominated defensively and on the backboards, showing off the dexterity and range of his full skill set as a two-way monster that is nearly incomparable in the entire NBA.
Now, with a new head coach who has put the onus back on AD to be whatever he wants to be this season, the question is just how great a season can Davis have and can he help lead them on one more deep playoff run next to LeBron?
What is his best-case scenario?
For a player of AD’s talent, there truly is no ceiling to how good he can be or what he can accomplish on the basketball court. That said, the type of full-boar, all-out season in which everything clicks and his production offensively thrives while his defense reigns over the entire league has never quite happened and is still on the table for him. And it’s certainly possible this year.
What that looks like is pretty straightforward.
First, it begins with great health. Davis played in 76 games last season, and the best-case scenario of a season for him would require a repeat of that sort of durability. While there should be precautions taken with AD coming off such a long regular season and then a summer of Olympic basketball, he is also still in his prime, physically strong and has proven himself capable of carrying a heavy workload all while playing substantial minutes.
So, while it’s fair to wonder if his body can take the pounding and there should be more attention paid to the wear and tear of a long season, there’s also an argument to be made that he’s set his body up over these last two seasons to understand what is required to take on this sort of ask.
Second is a return of his jumper as an effective part of his offensive arsenal and a piece of his game that he has confidence in deploying more often. What made AD so great in the run to the title was his ability to out-skill the behemoth big men that teams tried to pound him with and then out-muscle the power forwards and rangier centers that were deployed to try to match his quickness and agility.
In the past few seasons, AD’s jumper has steadily become less reliable and, with that, he’s skewed his offensive attack much more towards the paint. A return to form where he’s taking and making his mid-range jumper and reincorporating the three-ball into his game would do wonders for his game and the Lakers offense overall.
And, lastly, AD needs to build on his dominant season defensively last year and over the summer. To help facilitate this, however, his coach will also need to support him with more defensive talent and, at times, play him with a second big man who can help him protect the rim and clean the glass in order to give him the freedom to disrupt on the perimeter and as a help side defender more often.
Bench groups that flank him next to players like Jarred Vanderbilt, Max Christie and Jaxson Hayes would allow AD to flex all the parts of his defensive game and not just the side that has to be in the middle of the frame and always cleaning up for all his teammates.
What is his worst-case scenario?
To put it bluntly, the main concern for Davis and the only thing that could truly derail his season would be a significant injury that cost him an extended chunk of the season. Over the past three-plus seasons, the Lakers have been mostly terrible when AD is unable to play and this roster is not constructed to account for him missing large swaths of games.
With that, the driver of any worst-case scenario would be an injury and missed time.
On a smaller scale, though, there are little things that could chip away at his effectiveness and/or put too much stress on his individual game that drags down his efficiency and, in the process, wear him down to the point it impacts his overall effort level.
Be it his jumper not falling and needing to bang down low and becoming too paint-bound offensively, playing him with too few shot creators or ball handlers who can effectively get him the ball in positions to do damage to make his life easier or an over-reliance on him to always carry the entirety of the team’s defense on his shoulders and be the ultimate eraser for his teammate’s shortcomings, there are ways in which AD could run into challenges or see his game struggle at times.
There’s also the potential for the learning curve to be steep within the Lakers' new schemes and for it to take time for the offense to click into place, and with AD playing more in a “hub” role than in previous seasons, that clunkiness could fall directly into his lap.
Ultimately, then, there will need to be thoughtfulness in how AD is deployed within the team’s schemes while understanding there is still some sensitivity to the bench groups that Davis is expected to anchor.
And if the new coaching staff does not learn from some of the mistakes made under previous head coaches, they too can see firsthand how certain decisions can negatively impact AD’s game or simply overstress him on both sides of the floor in ways that put him at greater risk for worse outcomes or potential injury.
What is his most likely role on the team?
JJ Redick has repeatedly said that he thinks there is still meat left on the bone and room for growth in AD’s game. And it seems that a big part of Redick’s plan this season is to put AD in positions to not only push those boundaries of his own game but be successful doing it and really take the next step forward towards being the team’s best player night-in and night-out.
With that, Davis will get every opportunity to be the type of two-way superstar who competes for 1st team All-NBA and can even work his way into the MVP discussion. He’s certainly that talented, but this might just also be the season in which his usage, touches, and general role within the team’s offense help highlight how much he’s contributing to his team. Add to that his defensive ability and he could easily be in line for multiple season-end awards.
That said, even as the ask is very likely to grow this season where his role is more in line with the Jokic’s and Embiid’s of the league, what will really drive those conversations is winning.
Which, knowing AD over the course of his career, is what matters most anyway.
You can follow Darius on Twitter at @forumbluegold.