Anthony Davis May Be Back on Track, but Pelicans Are Derailing His Future
Anthony Davis went into this season determined to "get out of my comfort zone."
To some extent, he has.
More vocal leadership. More tenacity in playing with pain.
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And still, that growth has hardly mattered.
The New Orleans Pelicans are not good—and are not going to be good—this season. They beat a Boston Celtics team missing Al Horford and Jae Crowder 106-105 on Monday in exactly the sort of it's-time-we-give-max-effort, if-we-catch-the-other-team-slippin' victory that is the 2-9 Pelicans' best-case scenario.
Though only 11 games into Davis' fifth season, it is not too soon to wonder about Davis and the damage that is being done to him in his prime years.
The people you spend time with color the person you become.
Especially in your formative professional years.
Or if your parents wanted far more to make sure they raised a good person than a good but self-centered player (and your parents still live down the street now that you're 23).
And if your franchise has won only one playoff series in its New Orleans history and is best known for the circus that surrounded trying to trade away its best player, Chris Paul.
From a general organizational standpoint, New Orleans has done its job. The Pelicans have a nice three-year-old training facility and plenty of generous employees who deeply appreciate what a good guy Davis is.
And Davis himself has instituted tremendously high standards in his day-to-day work. He plays hard at both ends, to the point where Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry wishes Davis would take a few plays off to protect his health. Davis has established his rituals to maintain his personal standards of performance.
Yet just like everyone, even the physically blessed or tremendously driven, Davis needs others in order for him to become more.
He came from a very small high school and didn't know to work on his body at all. Only last offseason did he feel like his physical standards were truly raised via advanced training to strengthen not just his weak areas but the areas surrounding his weak areas.
There is always next-level thinking to facilitate improvement, but a player—especially one as deferential as Davis—sometimes needs that push to improve from the front office, from his coaches.
Indeed, Davis is no diva who needs everyone catering to him. He prefers to let others go about their business.
When he mentions the team played "terrible defense" last season, it is in the context of how deeply impressed he is with hard-working associate head coach Darren Erman being a big enough person to own it and tell the players he's the one responsible for that.
While no one around the NBA is surveying the bulging files of Davis' injury history and raving about his body composition, Davis is the guy who paid to bring Pelicans strength and conditioning coach Jason Sumerlin…and his wife…and his baby…along to Davis' offseason workouts.
He's a good soul, but also a trusting one and maybe even a naive one.
Consider his preseason evaluation of his Pelicans:
"I've felt confident in every team we've had. The organization has done a great job of putting guys around me. I think they did a hell of a job with our guys. I like every guy on this team. I think every guy on this team wants to win. Everybody plays hard. They did a great job putting this team together."
No matter the positive spin, it's an assessment undermined by the very first sentence—words that call into question his judgment (even as they demonstrate his loyalty).
Even with a 2-9 start following the 1-11 beginning to last year, Davis isn't going to go demanding a trade from these Pelicans or even gripe about his losing situation the way others might.
So then how does this get better?
After being away to assist in his wife's successful fight against a brain tumor, Jrue Holiday is nearing his season debut and will help.
After that, though, the options aren't clear. It's overly ambitious to assume Tyreke Evans (who is set to return to practice Tuesday) or Quincy Pondexter will come off their long injury layoffs to do much.
Top free-agent signee Solomon Hill has been a good locker room guy but hasn't come close to creating the gritty defensive identity the organization sought. And the rest comprises a team that ranks 25th in offensive efficiency and 19th on the defensive end.
The Pelicans roster is filled with players whom scouts wish had one more legit tool—and that's been the story of Davis' career.
Who is the best teammate Davis ever had? It's laughable to think Ryan Anderson, Eric Gordon, Evans or Holiday is or was anywhere close to the best anything in the NBA, but there has been no one else.
And it is worth noting that Anderson and Gordon left Davis and New Orleans and signed on to try to make the most of James Harden's superstar prime in Houston. Without a history of playing with great talents, Davis' basic ability to make teammates better has been slow to develop.
Maybe the most telling stat of all Davis' amazing ones in that analytically almighty 2014-15 season (his lone playoff appearance) was averaging 2.2 assists to 1.4 turnovers—the only time in his career he has been on the positive side of that ledger.
Against the Celtics on Monday, Davis had no assists against seven turnovers. And for the season, he's averaging 1.7 assists to 2.5 turnovers.
Davis' comps in the high-usage, low-assist mold are downright jarring, especially considering he plays face up to the basket more than the casual fan would think.
In using 33.7 percent of his team's possessions while on the court but assisting on only 9.2 percent of those possessions this season, Davis is a lot more like Brook Lopez (32.1 percent usage, 7.4 percent assist percentage) and Zach Randolph (30.6 percent usage, 9.0 percent assist percentage) than Kawhi Leonard (32.8 percent usage, 15.6 percent assist percentage), DeMarcus Cousins (35.3 percent usage, 17.8 assist percentage) and DeMar DeRozan (37.5 percent usage, 17.3 assist percentage).
Russell Westbrook (40.8 percent usage, 53.7 assist percentage) and Harden (33.5 percent usage, 56.8 assist percentage) are point guards by position but reside in a completely different stratosphere.
Gentry was supposed to give Davis a Golden State Warriors-like offensive support system, but that hasn't come close to fruition in a year-plus together.
So from players to coaches to management, where can Davis turn for truly elite assistance or counsel?
If there was any doubt about how this situation is reflecting on Davis, who failed to make any of the three All-NBA teams last season, consider that he went from a player 86.2 percent of the league's general managers voted they'd most want to start a franchise with before last season to some guy in the "also receiving votes" group last month, per NBA.com's John Schuhmann.
Deep down, Davis recognizes his need for outside help. He solicited leadership advice from Kobe Bryant upon signing a five-year extension with the Pelicans in 2015.
But Davis' standards for kindness and courtesy are higher than his demands for team success. He gets blinded by sweet hope.
Although he is developing his voice, to this point he doesn't want it badly enough to rebel or protest, which is why Bryant's advice to him was that he must prioritize winning above being liked.
"When it's time to get on somebody, you have to be the one to do it," Bryant told Davis.
In some ways, Davis has a lot in common with Kevin Durant—guys who preferred quiet, even sheltered existences in small markets. That was, until Durant grew up and figured out it was time to change.
Of course, Davis is earlier in his career arc than Durant, and in New Orleans, he is a long way from the level of winning Durant found before eventually deciding it wasn't good enough for him in Oklahoma City.
Davis is down deep in the Bayou, and it's a shame.
Kevin Ding is an NBA senior writer for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @KevinDing. Advanced statistics courtesy of NBA.com.
