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

i'm deflecting nothing. AD is currently our best player overall and is better than 2/3 of teams' best player. he got hurt because a guy rolled into his knee and he landed on an ankle. you cry a lot about it, but won't suggest the improvement other than burn it down...so you can cry about that i guess?

if pointing out that other stars get hurt (kd, steph, cp, lebron, etc.) is deflection, then choosing the production of non-laker players who happened not to get injured this year is SERIOUS deflection.

 

theres no adjustments to be made with an injury prone player, would think someone with your experience watching bball would understand that n i didnt pick any specific non lakers players to justify AD constant injuries, players tend to get mroe injury prone the older they get, especially bigs so not really seeing how you think AD can be a "60/gm" season player, even that standard is quite low for a star that this team heavily relys on. As i stated with AD, 1 injury leads to a plethora more, regardless of how hes been getting them. Whats your suggestion? keep him and pray for miracle that he stays healthy?

 

AD was our best player this year???

 

yes, actually. what's your plan? trade him for a healthy sub-star (who has a similar likelihood of future injury, tbh) and hope to finish 11th in a good year instead of a bad one?

when he was available, yes. only star that played defense (2nd stint, none of them did at first). that fans have ignored that end as much as our stars did continues to baffle me. it's why were terrible this year.

 

He shot 18% with 2.4 attempts per game from 3.
71% from FT
23pts per game
Lowest DBPM of the past 6 years
Lowest OBPM since rookie year
Lowest BPM since rookie year
Lowest VORP of career
-3.2 per 100 possessions when on court
3rd lowest PER of career.

I don't think his season, even disregarding the over 40 games missed, was better than Lebron's

 

yes. he is just behind those three in terms of most valuable bigs and way ahead of ingram and lavine, who a) aren't as good and b) get hurt just as much.

good news is that if jokic sprains an ankle, he's suddenly trash.

also, it's totally impossible that embiid is healthy now after years of not being healthy. i'm told it was decided he's made of glass or balsa wood and thus can't possibly be doing what he's doing now.

right. his bad season is better than most people's best. i agree. it's why we shouldn't trade him for people whose best season looks like his worst just because they didn't have someone thrown into their leg last year.

 

i really don't think he's as far off as everyone else does. and his value is different. people keep pointing to scoring; i'll point to the fact that nobody could stop houston until they ran into AD because he can guard inside and outside the paint. he just blows up your plans when he's healthy. embiid and jokic can't, and teams can exploit that. they NEED to score 40-50 to offset it. the fact that AD can, on occasion, score 40 or 50 points is a bonus. most guys with his defensive versatility would get paid max even if they couldn't score on anyone. hell, gobert is still highly valued even though his team loses because of him every year.

yes, AD hasn't been at his peak the past two years, but if that's the logic, then as i said above, embiid can't be happening. i'd rather see if AD can be himself again then make a trade for something less that's here more.

i think it will be a blessing that vets won't want to come here. they tanked us last year. let's get some hungry folks in.

as for jumpstarting the rebuild--we were on year 6 of it when we got AD, and it took him forcing the trade for it to happen. do you want that? we'll get less for him now (he's three years older and has been hurt), and it will take years for the picks to mature (assuming they do) until useful on or off-court (trade) assets. yuck. i'd rather just hope AD stays healthy.

still don't see why we should expect half a season every year. it happened in two straight years. it didn't happen in 8 straight prior to that. this isn't porzingis, or yao ming, or greg oden, or zion. this is a guy who played 75-80% of games for most of a decade. and it's not like, say, amare stoudemire, who was similar and then had a series of devastating knee injuries. if AD tears an achilles (this was my fear two years ago) or an acl, then i'm on everyone's team doom. but this just isn't the current situation.

i honestly can't foresee a world in which trading AD prior to this contract ending will make sense. we'll either be selling low or won't be able to trade him, imo.

no thanks. i wish he would have not played, quite frankly. we would have been better with him in streetclothes, for real.

i mean, i'd prefer healthy players, but a) you can't control that and b) a roster full of healthy mediocre players will drive this place even crazier than the current one, imo.

 

If Lebron believed in AD as a superstar teammate who can lead his team to a title, he would have never asked for a risky Westbrook trade. It was a clear signal Lebron believes he/AD are not enough.

By the way he was healthy at the start of the season and his impact didn't bring a lot of wins.

Health is a valid question. A bigger doubt about him is if he can be a #1 or #2 to help leading a team to a title. In my opinion, I don't think he is anymore.

In mid December he went down against Minny. Before that game Lakers were 16-13, we were 13-13 in the games he played (Consider we have a home heavy schedule!)

 

accurate.

 

Good read. Liked him being honest. And he seems to have processed it well

Hopefully he's done playing this season and can have a 6 month offseason to recover fully and comeback in the form of his life. It's the biggest season of his career, there's no excuses

 

If the Lakers desire to move forward with AD, then they need to look at how Dallas protected Dirk. Dirk was a go-to HOF all star talent but he can be pushed around physically too. They had goons like Erick Dampier and Tyson Chandler during their championship days to shoulder most of the minutes at C.

 

He should play power forward which is the position he prefers. I think he's a great one. Look around the NBA guys get injured, what can you do? Embiid, Durant, Kawhi, AD, George, Murray,Kyrie, Siakim Thompson, Dame...there are a lot of guys that have gone down with injuries over the last few seasons. Some are bigger names than others, but all high end talents. The older guys are getting it too..Lebron, Steph, Draymond, Lowry, Harden, nothing catastrophic but getting banged up over time adds up. It's the NBA. The perception is that the NBA is soft, but there are a lot of big people running around banging into each other in every game in this league. Sometimes some of them get injured.

 

I was done with AD early but he did show some fire when he came back. I still believe our season was doomed from the start because of our lackadaisical approach to training camp and pre-season. To get the best out of AD we need two things: one is to trade Lebron, he is after the scoring record and he wants to play with his son. Neither of those goals helps us win anything. Two hire a coach that will make AD be the focus of our offense. Run plays that force him to move and attack. Don't let him be complacent and lazy. He does have a tendency to stand too much. He is still an anchor for defense. I think AD issues are mostly mental and of course injuries. He needs a better off season program. He doesn't need to bulk up but slim down and work injury prevention, there is such a thing, light weight training and some type of martial arts. I gained a lot of flexibility and agility back even in my 60's doing martial arts. We need to either really make this AD's team, not just hot air talk from Lebron, or if we aren't we should trade him. I would like to give AD one legitimate chance to show he is a number one guy before moving on. Build around what AD needs. We got Reaves so we have two starters. I keep Monk as that explosive 6th guy if we can. His defense is too bad to be a starter on an even average team. Maybe Nunn will be healthy by the start of next season and we have a third starter. If we can somehow get rid of Russ we have really improved from a watchability perspective and can build. AD will attract talent if he has a good year. If not trade him, even though his value will have plummeted. Only pitfall to waiting.

 

yeah, as i've said a bunch--i don't think we've really tried to hand the reins to AD at all, despite some chatter about it here and there. teams haven't been built to maximize him, and he hasn't been publicly tasked with the responsibility. i think next year, we have to get there. if he fails/we fail. fine. you look at how to move on. but we haven't seriously explored the transition.

 

I hope Rob locks the two of you out of his office this summer. That's a big reason we're in this mess

 

Uhhhh, Anthony, all that needs to be said in your short convo is:”We really screwed up- maybe we should leave this to guys who know what they are doing. Those guys down in the scouting department have been hitting it out of the park since I’ve been here. Maybe Rob and Jeanie should start listening to them?”

 

Two stooges should stay out of personnel moves lolz

 

lol what changed? well, the entire roster, at your behest. that's what changed. also, both of you played like, half the games since then. also a big change.