Anthony Davis: Kentucky Star Will Give Bobcats Immediate Facelift
Anthony Davis is a player who can overcome any challenge. He can win a championship as a freshman. He can do it with a team primarily made up of underclassmen.
Next season, he will most likely face the biggest challenge of all: winning as a member of the Charlotte Bobcats.
Though there was once a rumor that Davis would stay in school for another year solely to avoid being banished to Charlotte, the consensus No. 1 pick cleared everything up when he officially declared (along with four of his teammates) on Tuesday night.
And if he ends up with the lowly Bobcats—which he probably will judging by Charlotte's unbelievable 7-53 record this year—so be it. Davis is up for the challenge.
He told The Charlotte Observer's Scott Fowler:
"Whoever drafts me, I’ll love playing for them.
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It's the right attitude to have, though it may not translate easily to others who have been in Davis' position as the top selection bound for a futile team. It is Davis' job as the best player in the nation to prove he can transform a team at the next level. He can't do it by himself, but he represents the first step.
The Bobcats, however, need all the help they can get. Since their inception in the 2004-05 season, they have finished with a record over .500 just once, and that was in 2009-10. They've gone through four coaches in just eight seasons, and this has been their worst campaign by far.
Given the strike-shortened season, it's hard to put the 2011-12 Bobcats in perspective with the worst teams in NBA history—and it looks unlikely that they'll be able to finish with fewer wins than the 9-73 76ers in 1973—but they are "one of the absolute worst NBA teams ever assembled," as Fowler put it.
In his one season at Kentucky, Davis tallied 14.2 points, 10.4 rebounds and 4.7 blocks per game, and he created massive matchup problems for essentially any team in the NCAA. If Charlotte finishes with the worst record in the NBA, they will have a 25 percent chance of winning the top pick in the draft.
Even if Davis is unable to lead the Bobcats to a .500 record in his rookie campaign, he will give Charlotte a piece of the puzzle it desperately needs: the kind of player to make the fans care again. Davis, a national champion and the most highly-touted prospect in this year's class, is the most buzzed-about player heading into the draft. He dominated every player he faced in the NCAA, and fans are eager to see if he can do the same thing at the next level.
Most eager of all will be the Charlotte fans. Davis may not be able to magically turn the Bobcats into a title contender in one season, but he can at least give this inept franchise something to look forward to.
