Anthony Davis Is The Future of the NBA

Anthony Davis playing for the New Orleans Pelicans

Anthony Davis playing for the New Orleans Pelicans (By Keith Allison, Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0, image link: flicker, cropped derivative)

His resume reads like a basketball Hall of Famer. He has won an NCAA title, numerous players of the year awards, and NBA honors as well. If Anthony Davis can win an NBA title, he will go down as one of the all-time NBA greats. Davis already has six years in the league and is still just 25 years of age. He’s got lots of basketball left in him and New Orleans, his NBA home the past six seasons, is counting on it.

Davis is one of the candidates for this year’s NBA Most Valuable Player award. In leading the Pelicans to the No. 6 seed in the Western Conference, Davis averaged 28.1 points, 11.1 rebounds, and a league-leading 2.57 blocks per game. While a candidate for MVP, Davis is also a candidate for the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year. The 6-foot-11-inch Davis can simply do it all. That was not always the case.

Chicago Area’s Best Player

Davis was a 6-0 ninth-grader who excelled by shooting 3-pointers. It wasn’t until Davis grew to 6-8 as a high school junior that people began to take notice. He had never played on the AAU circuit, but he was still regarded as one of the Chicago area’s best players. Further complicating matters was that Davis played at a charter school on the city’s south side more known for its academics than athletics.

After playing AAU basketball in the spring of junior year, Davis started drawing attention from colleges around the country. As a high school senior, the then 6-10 Davis averaged 32 points, 22 rebounds, and seven blocked shots per game. Wooed by nation’s blueblood basketball programs, Davis eventually decided to take his talents to Kentucky where Davis would lead the Wildcats to the 2011-12 national championship. In Davis’s one year at Kentucky, he accomplished the rare feat of being named the Naismith Player of the Year, the SEC Player of the Year, the NABC Defensive Player of the Year, a consensus first-team All-American, and the Most Outstanding Player of the 2012 NCAA tournament. Also, he was named the recipient of the Kyle Macy Award as the nation’s Freshman of the Year.

First Draft Pick

Davis was a no-brainer for the then-New Orleans Hornets, who went ahead and drafted Davis as the first pick in the 2012 NBA Draft. After a rookie season that allowed him to get comfortable with the league, Davis has been one of the league’s best. He has made the NBA All-Star game in five straight seasons and won the All-Star Game MVP this year.

With 35 points and 14 rebounds in New Orleans’ Game 1 win over Portland in the Western Conference playoffs, Davis led the Pelicans to the franchise’s first postseason win since 2011. It was Davis’s first playoff win of his young career. If he can win a few more, he might someday capture what all NBA players strive for – that elusive NBA title.

Copyright © 2021, The Basketball Fans. All rights reserved.