Anthony Davis Leaving No Doubt He's Top-5 NBA Superstar at 21 Years Old
Sooner rather than later, even the words will fail, replaced only by silent, slack-jawed stares and barely-believing minds—hardwood worship at its purest.
Sooner rather than later, the whens and hows will bow to the now.
Sooner rather than later, Anthony Davis made his formal, final metamorphosis from next in a nebulous line to something more concrete: At just 21 years old, he's become one of the top five players in the world.
Even that might be stating it safely. From the cartoonish player efficiency rating (35.9 through Sunday) to the ever-broadening canon of exploits—he tallied a career high 43 points in a 106-94 win over the Utah Jazz Saturday—Davis has stated his case for pantheon placement.
To the already seam-bursting list of potential superlatives, let us add another: Should Davis finish the season with a PER above 30, he'd be the youngest player in history ever to do so, besting Tracy McGrady by more than a calendar year.
More immediately, he’s helped transform the New Orleans Pelicans from wayward backwater into one of the league’s most intriguing young teams—a youth-laden force with legitimate playoff potential.
But it’s Davis who draws the attention, shatters game plans and commands as much respect as he elicits nightmares.
Davis is the one who knocks.
''He’s really good,'' Los Angeles Lakers head coach Byron Scott—in perhaps the understatement of the year—told NOLA.com’s John Reid. ''Just watching him on tape, he really doesn’t have any weaknesses. He runs the floor extremely well, excellent passer, excellent defender, block shots and can shoot it from about 18 feet. There are not many things on the court that I haven’t seen him do well.''
Under normal circumstances, using 15 percent of the season to project some steel-taut truism would be a foolhardy endeavor.
Only there’s nothing normal about Anthony Davis. Not the skills or the ceiling, the gifts or the game. He is, to steal a line from the great Hunter Thompson, “one of god’s own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind, never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.”
Chalk it up to the fourth-dimensional genetics, to the point guard pedigree, to a mind made cat-quick by years spent jumping and gliding in spindly defiance. Chalk it up it to all these things or all these things and more.
Whatever you do, though, don’t dare deign to sip the player-comp Kool-Aid. From the tremendous Zach Lowe of Grantland:
"It’s telling that the comparisons have mostly stopped. When Anthony Davis came into the league, with ridiculous arms and guard skills honed before a late growth spurt, everyone rushed to find his NBA analogue.
Kevin Garnett was a popular choice. Comparisons with Tim Duncan dominated the lead-up to Davis’s regular-season debut against San Antonio, even though Duncan as a rookie was older and stouter and he had a back-to-the-basket game that was historically great almost from the moment he entered the league.
Davis has murdered this parlor game. People around the league don’t know what to make of him anymore. They are just terrified...
"
That Lowe’s piece was penned in April only underscores the severity of Davis’ leap.
He hasn’t merely outstripped his own professional curve, he’s planting one for future phenoms to follow, and doing so as impossibly far beyond the boundaries of the graph as he can.
Frightening as Davis’ domination has been, though, the fear turns fourfold when faced with this: the wisdom, the weapons, the wherewithal—all of it is only going to grow. Above and beyond even what the former No. 1 overall pick has thus far displayed between his second and third years.
Pelicans assistant Kevin Hanson recently spoke with Pelicans.com's Jim Eichenhofer about Davis’ improved jumper:
"His shot has opened up so many things, because teams have to play him closely. He’s really picked up his understanding of how bigs are guarding him. The game has slowed down for him a lot right now. He’s seen a lot of different defenses and how teams play him. He’s got such a high basketball IQ, that you show him something and he picks it up.
"
Sports ceilings are tricky things, of course.
For as ironclad as Davis’ continued ascendance might seem, we risk shortchanging the factors working in concert against him: the ability of opponents to strategize and scheme, the effect of changing personnel and—most sobering of all—the sheer upper limits of what one basketball body can bear.
Then again, why even harbor the thought? It is, from a pure fan perspective, simply not worth it. Not when the wonder of it all still feels so novel. Not when Davis’ singular genius remains suspended beyond the realm of concepts. Not when basketball feels this fun.
Debate will rage over whether Davis deserves inclusion within the LeBron James-Kevin Durant duopoly.
Truth be told, there may be some dues left to pay—playoff appearances, All-Star nods, the ever-building burdens of a man who must be marked before he’s made. As the best always have.
This is fine. So long as we don’t act surprised when he pays them all in full, with credit enough to buy the title of best outright.
.jpg?w=600 "Colts Release Kenny Moore")
