Anthony Davis Discussion: Thanks For The Ring AD!!!

My problem with AD is that I have seen him do too many great things to accept the lackluster play we get too much of the time. When you are supposed to be a superstar sucking up superstar money I expect a superstar. We don't get that often enough. If he wants to sign a five or six million dollar contract he can take chunks of games off and I will complain about him much less often. We got Westbrook killing us most nights, with AD it is hard tell what you are going to get and Lebron for the most part saying f it I'm chasing Kareem. That is where our season has gone. It isn't the role players, other than I am still not happy about AC between in Chicago and Reaves not being developed as he should have been from day one.

 

AD's stats are pretty much right on his career averages, save for the bad three point shooting.

his advanced stats are down the past two years, but as i've said many times, i think that has a lot to do with what's been around him (a lebron team often missing lebron himself).

again, i encourage folks to watch that clip from the gs game where AD defends literally everyone and the opposition still scores.

anyway, i concede AD could have brought better effort in some games, but i think it's getting overblown almost to a comical extent.

 

All things considered, as imperfect as AD is, I would rather keep him and build around him even if he's not a true #1. The talent is there, the support staff and teammates are not. Also AD himself needs to be responsible to turnaround his play.

But Lebron/AD combo doesn't work anymore for a team with championship aspirations, we need to separate them. Unfortunately we need to play the game within the game and earn credibility around the league until Lebron retires in 2023 summer, even if it means we are going to be mediocre on the court.

 

Ummm, just nitpicking but .... "until LeBron retires in 2023 summer". Not a chance in hell unless he has career ending injury.

 

we need to be courting beal hard. get him to opt in for next year and be free the next summer. his preferred offense matches just fine with AD, and you can put lebron with them and two defenders (and if lebron gives a little salary back, you can afford them) and kick a**, even two years from now, imo.

anyway, our fortunes are tied to AD, so we need to start thinking about him as the center piece and act accordingly instead of...whatever this is...

 

AD, LeBron, Beal, THT and Reaves (with rest of this season and next plus 2 summers strength training in a perfect world) wouldn't suck would it?

 

again, while i agree he hasn't had his heart in it at times, he's done more, particularly on defense, than the other two stars.

i really think he's beat down because nobody defends and they just assume he'll cover for them. i said it early in the season, too. it's hard to exert your energy on that end when no one else does, because even if you, individually, are perfect, all it takes one dude counting his change for the other team to score. and we've got several change counters.

 

He's also the only star of the three that is currently in his prime. So yea he's going to have to shoulder most of the load on defense.

 

my point was that defense doesn't work that way. you can't have guys just opting out of it. it's probably the most team-oriented aspect of the game in that every single guy has to be on the same page and playing his role. on offense, you can have guys whose role it is to stand in spots, but not on defense.

so, ironically, if it's about age and workload, we need to be centering the OFFENSE on AD. but we really don't do that.

 

If you plan to play small ball the majority of every game, regardless of the opposition, you should expect the defense to take a hit. I don't understand why this is so shocking. The major difference with this roster compared to the previous two, is the lack of length and size that we put on the floor.

 

Takes a special player to be in it day in and day out, year in and year out.

Magic, Kareem, Kobe, Shaq, LeBron.

Once you have those players, everyone else becomes an issue if they don't play like those players.

 

Feel bad for the brother but dudes an injury waiting to happen....Said it months ago....trade him before its too late......too late. Smh....

 

I've suffered many ankle injuries and that's one of the worst I've ever seen. I feel for him. Just shut him down for the rest of the year and get him mentally and physically right. This year is a lost cause.

 

Luckily it's only a sprain


But man, that was a really bad sprain. Based on his immediate reaction and having to be carried to the locker room, I don't think we'll see him for awhile.

 

Doesn't matter.