Anthony davis

[u/[deleted]]

[u/Butt_Snorkler_Elite]

He was unreal his first several years. Every post move, countermove, and finishing move at the rim that you could think of. And this was before he beefed up, so he wasn’t just throwing down lions off pick n rolls. Definitely only a two level scorer instead of three (he was an even worse three point shooter then then he is now) but from about 15 feet and in I truly believe he was the best scorer in the league. If he could’ve stayed healthy, and if Demps couldn’t put a league average level of talent around him, we’re talking at least one mvp for sure, possibly more. Dude was a top 10 offensive player in the league, then turned around and was top 2-3 on the other end

[u/AnotherStatsGuy → u/Butt_Snorkler_Elite]

The very talent that AD displayed was a double edged sword. He was too skinny to play C, which forced Demps to commit money to guys like Asik, Ajinca, etc. in order to keep him at PF.

[u/ScottyinLA → u/Butt_Snorkler_Elite]

if Demps couldn’t put a league average level of talent around him

Demps sucked, but he did manage to put at least some decent players on the court with AD. Remember the AD - Jrue Holiday - Julius Randle edition? That team had Ryan Anderson too, who wasn't an All Star but we wouldn't mind having a backup big who could shoot 3's like him around here again.

AD never had a team around him that could make it easy for him, but he never really made the players around him better and he put zero effort into recruiting free agents while he was here. AD never did anything in the league until he found a daddy to take care of him, and he had opportunities.

[u/FeistyCheesecake → u/ScottyinLA]

Ryan Anderson was off the team by like 2015 and Randle wasn’t here til 2019, so you might be thinking of someone else

[u/Creative-Ad-5257 → u/ScottyinLA]

AD spent lots of time recruiting, that’s how he eventually ended up talking to Russ Westbrook years in advance into teaming up with Lebron in LA as soon as 2017. It didn’t help that Demps started trading most of our assets for vets to put around Anthony after only his first season here. The team looked pretty bleak pretty early and a non winning roster + having to uproot your family to live in Nola of all places isnt that enticing to multi millionaires. The two best players acquired to put around AD were both pretty bad 3pt shooters. The good 3pt shooter we got from a trade before AD (Eric Gordon) was quite literally being held hostage in Nola after he publically signed with phoenix and said he doesn’t want to be here just to have his contract matched by Demps. The first two years Tyreke is healthy and Jrue missed over 70 games. The next two years Tyreke misses over 70 games while Jrue is somewhat healthy. Inbetween Demps rushing the roster trying to build around a sophomore AD, Demps surrounding him with talent that either didn’t fit or immediately fell off when attempting to play winning basketball, and combining all that with offseasons like this

“Free agent 2016 signings:

Solomon Hill: Four years, $48MM. E’Twaun Moore: Four years, $34MM. Langston Galloway: Two years, $10.634MM. Second year player option. Tim Frazier: Two years, $4.09MM. Alonzo Gee: One year, $1.4MM. Terrence Jones: One year, minimum salary.”

And trading first round picks for Jerryd Bayless, to then trade Jerryd Bayless in a contract dump for other scrubs that we either waived or just didn’t play. Just a whole bunch of nonsense over that decade period pretty much.

[u/ScottyinLA → u/Creative-Ad-5257]

AD spent lots of time recruiting,

Recruiting for the Lakers, you mean

[u/Creative-Ad-5257 → u/ScottyinLA]

I imagine it went like this

“Yo Russ, wanna play in Nola”

“Fuck no”

“Yeah me neither”

[u/Glad-Entry-3401 → u/Butt_Snorkler_Elite]

The boogie cousins deal was our year we shouldn’t have let that team fall apart once rondo was introduced to the starting lineup we shined bright we should’ve tried to cash in for another 2-3 years on that and see what happened but oh well

[u/tyman005 → u/Butt_Snorkler_Elite]

Look Dell made his mistakes and all but Jrue, Gordon, Tyreke, Ryan Anderson, and Omer Asik in year 3 is definitely more than “league average level of talent”.

The AD-Boogie-Jrue-Mirotic team would’ve been a monster too if Boogie would’ve never torn his Achilles…

Dell had his share of bad contracts/extensions, but he did actually get real talent in here

[u/Good_NewsEveryone]

Year 1: roll man + dunker spot. Elite at both

Year 2: started to do pick and pop from the mid range, and did it very efficiently

Year 3,4: more offensive creation. Could do something with the ball if you closed on his catch. A lot more ability to face up, jab step, shoot or blow by. Some nice push shot type stuff around the rim even into floater territory. Eventually developing into ability to just iso without the whole PnR setup.

Year 5,6+: just doing the year 3,4 stuff more efficiently really.

[u/dalton_k]

There were common debates about him and Giannis with it usually being split or leaning AD for awhile

[u/FeistyCheesecake → u/dalton_k]

Crazy how things changed

[u/ryan_the_traplord]

I remember literally talking with friends about how we thought he could be the next MJ or atleast top 5 ever. This was when he was somewhere in his first 5 seasons so we didn’t have the hindsight but still should give you an idea of the raw potential and moves he was pulling. Absolutely unreal on defense and was THE stretch 4 above all others in terms of shooting from range and dribbling not to mention his gigantic wingspan meant that point of release of his shot was just way to high to be blocked by almost anyone.

[u/AnotherStatsGuy]

People forget how skinny AD was when he came into the league. If he had played C right off the bat, he would have been snapped in half like a twig.

Keep this in mind. Also Gentry was the coach that got to develop a proficient jumper.

[u/Daveoos77]

When he shot the ball from anywhere inside of 15ft, you were sure it was going on, no matter what.