Anthony Davis Discussion: Only Player On Both All NBA + All Def

His injuries were bad luck. Lebron offensive fouls someone into his knee. Rolled his foot on Gobert trying to catch a lob. Another foot injury after bumping it against Jokic..

Only in 2021 after the short offseason were his injuries a case of being out of shape.

 

HA!! .... just made a joke to call attention to and explain this in DLO's thread.

 

Frontcourt Starter: Anthony Davis, Los Angeles Lakers
With all due respect to LeBron James, Davis has been the primary concern when you go against L.A. since the bubble. He leads the scouting report, forcing constant adjustments and questions few teams are prepared to answer. How can we keep him off the glass and limit second-chance opportunities and easy putbacks? Do we utilize bigger lineups that aren’t part of our normal rotation? Only Giannis Antetokounmpo and Zion Williamson average more points in the paint. When they toss it to AD in the post, will we double on the catch, wait for him to put it on the deck, or let him attack single coverage? He’s generating 1.13 points per possession on post-ups that include a pass, which, out of 28 players who’ve logged at least 100 plays, trails only Jokic, Embiid, and Kristaps Porzingis.

On defense: Where is he? How will we not let those long arms disrupt our sets? Can we afford to use a non-shooter who lets Davis protect the rim, even if said non-shooter is needed for paint battles on the other end?

Most teams that answer that last question with a “no” tend to suffer for it.

Davis is a strong Defensive Player of the Year candidate despite misleading on/off statistics that are skewed by some terrible 3-point luck and a cast of one-way teammates who ball watch, get burned off the dribble, make him slide out of position to put out a fire they started (and then not box out), and jog back in transition without purpose. (Look how good the Lakers defense is when Davis is on the court without Austin Reaves.) AD is dominant. Hopefully the Lakers don’t take it for granted.

 

lies

he's soft beta man, so this can't be true

 

I think with LeBron being out tonight, I'm looking at AD and the others to step up in a big way.

If you remember, last year when LeBron went down late in the season, the Lakers actually went on a RUN without him and it was largely led by AD and Reaves.

Going up against the cross town rivals without LeBron...this could be a statement game from AD.

Also - seeing KAT and Embiid drop 62 and 70 respectively on Kobe's 81-point game anniversary date...I hope AD is looking at that and saying alright it's my turn to drop the hammer.

Plus, the Lakers might actually NEED him to drop 50 to win tonight lol.

 

Hoping he’s okay. Tougher out the rest of the game but didn’t look right to me.

 

Tough son of a b**** this year. Pushed through clear pain and limitation to give us what he had to close this out. Without his size in the middle, very different ending.

Only complaints: maybe not try those two corner 3s. Wish he didn't freeze on the Steph 3, don't know if he thought it was a Dray foul or his body wouldn't move.

 

The face at the end says it all

 

“that’s on coach” …. “that’s on coach” …. “I can’t call him Numbnuts like LT on LB because the L.A. press would have a field day”.

 

Perfect lol

 

lol it wasn't so much the statement as the smile instead of any elaboration afterwards. yikes.

 

LOL, that clip speaks volumes! That’s the most transparent calling out of Ham I’ve seen from anyone on the team!

Aside from the rotations thought, what exactly was the deal with AD’s usage in the second half of the GSW game? He stayed out of the paint on offense and looked like he was deliberately camping outside the three point line.

That had to be a “He was hurt so we wanted to save him on offense by using him as a decoy, so that we could rely on him on defense” more than an actual schematic strategy that we thought might work right?

 

I think that was on purpose: he blew a bunch of bunnies near the rim which he normally dunks or easily put back. I don't think they trusted his legs at that point

 

He was hurt. He even went to the locker room and came back. He had hip spasms

 

Brooks is worse than Dray. Dray at least is a hall of fame basketball player and one of the best defensive players in the past decade. Brooks isn't. He's a gimmicky, dirty scrub who's only contributions is his antics.

Again, someone needs to swing at this clown

 

that's why i didn't mind having pat bev around. he was willing to go after fake tough guys like brooks

 

No AD tonight