Anthony Davis
Anthony Davis is the most physically unusual player in basketball. He is 6’10” with a 7’6” wingspan. He is the only player in the modern NBA who can, on any given defensive possession, switch onto a point guard at the top of the key and a center at the rim on the same trip down the floor. He is a ten-time NBA All-Star, a five-time All-NBA First Team selection, a four-time All-Defensive First Team selection, the 2020 NBA champion, the 2020 Olympic gold medalist, an NBA 75th Anniversary Team member, and the active player whose full defensive-profile ceiling is cited in more NBA front-office evaluation briefs than anyone other than LeBron James. He is also, per the most reliable on-record reporting, the only active player in NBA history to be traded as the centerpiece of a deal that returned a reigning All-NBA First Team member (Luka Dončić) and then, three weeks later, to be traded again in the same calendar year. He has, in 2026, played for four franchises in three years.
Englewood and the five-inch growth spurt
He was born March 11, 1993 in the Englewood neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago. His mother, Erainer Davis, worked two jobs through most of Anthony’s childhood. His father, Anthony Davis Sr., was an auto mechanic. He has a twin sister, Antoinette, who played Division I basketball at Daley College. He has said in multiple interviews that Englewood, in his formative years, was one of the three most violent zip codes in Chicago, and that the decision to attend Perspectives Charter School (a math-and-science-focused charter with a small basketball program) rather than a larger public high school was his mother’s deliberate choice to insulate him from the neighborhood’s streets.
He was 6’0” as a freshman at Perspectives. Perspectives did not have a full basketball program. He was a competent guard who shot well but was not recruited by major AAU programs. Between his junior and senior years, 2009 and 2010, he grew five inches, from 6’5” to 6’10”. The transformation went largely unnoticed by national recruiters until the Chicago-based AAU team Mac Irvin Fire invited him to a July 2010 tournament. Within two weeks of that tournament he was a top-five national recruit. He committed to Kentucky on August 11, 2010.
Kentucky (2011–2012)
He played one season for John Calipari. He wore #23 in explicit tribute to Michael Jordan. He averaged 14.2 points, 10.4 rebounds, and 4.7 blocks, set the NCAA freshman single-season blocks record at 186, was the consensus national college player of the year, and, in the 2012 NCAA Tournament, led Kentucky to a national championship. In the final against Kansas on April 2, 2012, he scored 6 points on 1-of-10 shooting but had 16 rebounds, 6 blocks, 5 assists, and 3 steals. It is the lowest-scoring championship Most Outstanding Player line of the one-and-done era, and the performance that NBA front offices studied that summer as the decisive case that scoring output was the wrong framing for his rookie-year projection.
The 2012 draft and the New Orleans years (2012–2019)
The New Orleans Hornets (they would be renamed the Pelicans in 2013) took Davis first overall on June 28, 2012. He was 19. He averaged 13.5 and 8.2 as a rookie. By his third year (2014-15) he was averaging 24.4 points, 10.2 rebounds, and 2.9 blocks and was a first-team All-NBA selection. By 2017-18 he was averaging 28.1 and 11.1 and was, by every analytic measurement, a top-five player in the NBA.
The Pelicans, in the seven seasons of Davis’s tenure, made the playoffs twice. They were eliminated in the first round in 2015 and advanced to the second round in 2018 before being swept by Golden State. The problem was not Davis. The problem was the roster around him, which the New Orleans front office under Dell Demps (2010-2019) and later David Griffin (2019) was never able to assemble into a playoff-level supporting cast. By January 2019 Davis had formally requested a trade. On June 15, 2019, New Orleans traded him to the Los Angeles Lakers for Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, Josh Hart, and three first-round picks (including the 2019 fourth overall pick, which became Zion Williamson’s draft slot after a tiebreaker coin flip).
The Lakers (2019–2025) and the 2020 championship
The 2019-20 Lakers were the best basketball team assembled around LeBron James since the 2013 Heat. Davis averaged 26.1 points, 9.3 rebounds, and 2.3 blocks as the starting power forward. He was second in Defensive Player of the Year voting (behind Giannis Antetokounmpo) and third in MVP voting. The Lakers went 52-19 in the regular season before the COVID-19 shutdown, returned for the Orlando bubble playoffs, and went 16-5 on the way to the championship.
In the 2020 Finals against the Miami Heat, Davis averaged 25.0 points and 10.7 rebounds. In Game 2 of the series he posted 32 and 14 in a 124-114 win. In Game 5, a 111-108 Lakers loss, he had 28 and 12. The Lakers clinched the title in Game 6 on October 11, 2020. The championship was his first and, so far, his only.
The post-2020 Lakers years included a first-round Game 6 loss to the Phoenix Suns in 2021, a play-in elimination in 2022, a Western Conference Finals loss to Denver in 2023, a first-round loss to Denver in 2024, and a series of chronic injuries that limited him to 60, 40, 56, and 76 regular-season games across those four seasons. His production, when healthy, remained top-five at his position. His availability did not.
The 2025 trade to Dallas
On February 2, 2025, at approximately 11:15 p.m. Eastern time, ESPN reporter Shams Charania posted a two-word tweet: “Luka. Lakers.” Within three hours, the full trade details were public: Davis, Max Christie, and a 2029 first-round pick to Dallas for Luka Dončić, Maxi Kleber, and Markieff Morris. The Utah Jazz (as third-party facilitator) received draft picks.
The trade was, by universal consensus across NBA media, the most shocking transaction in league history. Charania himself, in the 48 hours after he broke the story, revised his phrasing on The Pat McAfee Show to “the most important trade in the last twenty-five years.” The full trade reconstruction, compiled by Shams Charania and Sam Amick at The Athletic three weeks later, is documented on our Biggest NBA trades in history page. Davis’s role in the deal was as the contract-matching piece. He had not requested a trade. Dallas general manager Nico Harrison publicly stated that the Mavericks had initiated the conversation because Harrison believed Dončić’s work ethic and conditioning would not produce a championship.
Davis played 15 games for the Mavericks in February and March 2025, averaging 22.0 and 11.3 before a calf strain ended his regular season. Dallas missed the playoffs.
The February 2026 trade to Washington
On February 5, 2026, the Dallas Mavericks traded Davis to the Washington Wizards in a three-team deal also involving the Memphis Grizzlies. The return to Dallas was Khris Middleton, two second-round picks, and cap flexibility. Davis wore #23 again in Washington, his fourth jersey number across four different franchises. The trade was, by most NBA media consensus, the Mavericks’ acknowledgment that the Dončić-Davis swap had not produced the basketball results they had projected.
Davis has played 19 games for Washington as of this writing and is averaging 19.8 and 10.4. The Wizards are out of 2026 playoff contention. His trade value has stabilized around the max-plus-plus range he has held since 2022. His contract runs through the 2028-29 season.
Olympics and Team USA
He was the youngest member of the 2012 London Olympic gold medal team, where he was a reserve center on a roster that included LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony, and Chris Paul. He won FIBA World Cup gold in 2014. He was the starting power forward on the 2024 Paris Olympic gold medal team, alongside LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, and Jayson Tatum. He is one of only four American players to have won Olympic gold medals twelve years apart (alongside David Robinson, Carmelo Anthony, and Kevin Durant).
Legacy
The basketball argument about Davis is straightforward. At his health-adjusted peak (2017-2020), he was one of the four best players in the world, with a defensive ceiling that, for his size, has no real precedent. His career per-game line of 24.0 points, 10.4 rebounds, 2.2 assists, and 2.3 blocks places him inside the top ten power-forward/center hybrid profiles of the modern era. The ring question that followed so many of his peers does not apply in the same way: he has won a championship. The durability question has.
The alternate-timeline argument is what it has always been for Davis. Had the 2018-19 trade to Los Angeles happened a summer earlier, or had the 2021 Phoenix playoff loss ended differently (LeBron James was playing on a torn ankle ligament for much of the series), he may have won two or three championships. He did not. He has played, in his career, with four specifically Hall of Fame-caliber teammates (LeBron James, Zion Williamson, Luka Dončić, and briefly Jrue Holiday). No combination of them has produced the extended Finals run the basketball-operations community expected.
The body is holding up better than most of the 2020-era projections had forecast. He has, at 33, three or four more productive NBA seasons ahead of him. Washington’s 2025-26 rebuild timeline suggests the Wizards are not the franchise where he will retire. The next trade, whenever it happens, will be back to a contender.
Gear
Shop official Anthony Davis jerseys and fan gear on Fanatics, or browse The Book of Basketball for the Pyramid context.
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Sources
Basketball-Reference is the primary statistical source. The Englewood and Perspectives Charter School chapter is drawn from Lee Jenkins’s January 2018 Sports Illustrated feature “The Most Unguardable Big Man Since Shaq.” The 2012 NCAA Tournament and Kentucky championship context is from the NCAA Tournament archive. The 2020 championship game-by-game is from Dave McMenamin’s ESPN bubble coverage. The February 2, 2025 Luka-Davis trade reconstruction is from Shams Charania and Sam Amick’s Athletic investigation three weeks after the deal, and the full trade mechanics are detailed on our Biggest NBA trades in history page. The February 2026 Washington transaction is from Shams Charania’s deadline-week reporting.
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Sources
- Basketball-Reference: Anthony Davis
- Sports Illustrated: "The Most Unguardable Big Man Since Shaq" (Lee Jenkins, January 2018)
- The Athletic: "The Luka Dončić / Anthony Davis Trade, Reconstructed" (Shams Charania + Sam Amick, February 2025)
- ESPN: "Anthony Davis Wins 2020 NBA Championship" (Dave McMenamin, October 2020)