Players as gifted as Anthony Davis deserve better than to toil away in mediocrity, and right now, the New Orleans Pelicans are mediocre
We all wanted Anthony Davis to keep growing. In many ways it’s not fair to ask this of a man with a 7-foot-6 wingspan. Anthony Davis is a medical anomaly with no NBA parallel. His body composition alone allows for clear advantages against his peers before even stepping on the court.
Many marvel at athletes like LeBron James – a player with a body seemingly designed in a lab for their sport. The prevailing narrative is that these lucky few were “made for basketball.” Anthony Davis breaks this mold, toting gifts made to ruin basketball. Davis is not the typical plodding big man either. A much shorter Davis played guard for much of his high school career.
There, he drilled on fundamentals underutilized by others his eventual size. Anthony Davis can sky for contested rebounds, beat opposing forwards and centers down the floor, weave the ball through defenses, drain jumpers, and go home after the game to change a nine-foot ceiling light bulb on flat feet.
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One player should not be so gifted.
Anthony Davis was billed as the NBA’s next big thing coming out of Kentucky. Hampered by nagging injuries his rookie season with the New Orleans Pelicans, Davis broke out in his sophomore campaign to average 20 points and 10 rebounds with 2.8 blocks and a 0.582 True Shooting percentage.
There have only been a handful of players to ever complete a comparable season in their first two years in the league, seven of which had at least seven All-Star selections in their careers.
| Shooting | Per Game | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rk | Player | Season | Age | Tm | FG% | eFG% | FT% | TS% | PTS | TRB | BLK | WS |
| 1 | David Robinson | 1990-91 | 25 | SAS | .552 | .552 | .762 | .615 | 25.6 | 13.0 | 3.9 | 17.0 |
| 2 | Shaquille O’Neal | 1993-94 | 21 | ORL | .599 | .599 | .554 | .605 | 29.3 | 13.2 | 2.9 | 16.9 |
| 3 | Bob McAdoo | 1973-74 | 22 | BUF | .547 | .547 | .793 | .594 | 30.6 | 15.1 | 3.3 | 15.3 |
| 4 | David Robinson | 1989-90 | 24 | SAS | .531 | .531 | .732 | .597 | 24.3 | 12.0 | 3.9 | 15.1 |
| 5 | Tim Duncan | 1997-98 | 21 | SAS | .549 | .549 | .662 | .577 | 21.1 | 11.9 | 2.5 | 12.8 |
| 6 | Anthony Davis | 2013-14 | 20 | NOP | .519 | .520 | .791 | .582 | 20.8 | 10.0 | 2.8 | 10.4 |
| 7 | Shaquille O’Neal | 1992-93 | 20 | ORL | .562 | .562 | .592 | .584 | 23.4 | 13.9 | 3.5 | 10.4 |
| 8 | Hakeem Olajuwon | 1984-85 | 22 | HOU | .538 | .538 | .613 | .564 | 20.6 | 11.9 | 2.7 | 10.2 |
| 9 | Hakeem Olajuwon | 1985-86 | 23 | HOU | .526 | .526 | .645 | .560 | 23.5 | 11.5 | 3.4 | 9.5 |
| 10 | Alonzo Mourning | 1992-93 | 22 | CHH | .511 | .511 | .781 | .586 | 21.0 | 10.3 | 3.5 | 8.2 |
| 11 | Alonzo Mourning | 1993-94 | 23 | CHH | .505 | .505 | .762 | .588 | 21.5 | 10.2 | 3.1 | 6.3 |
| 12 | Ralph Sampson | 1983-84 | 23 | HOU | .523 | .523 | .661 | .551 | 21.0 | 11.1 | 2.4 | 6.0 |
Provided by Basketball-Reference.com
Davis had already placed himself among the NBA’s historical elite – in the company of legends like Duncan, Shaq, Hakeem, and David Robinson. He progressed even further in the 2014-15 NBA season, averaging 24.4 PPG while increasing his efficiency.
Davis made All-NBA First Team, All-Defensive Second Team, and placed 5th in MVP voting. The New Orleans Pelicans even won a tiebreaker to make the playoffs in dramatic fashion for the first time in team history. Though his exact trajectory was unknown, the public consensus was that Davis would soon be considered an all-time great.
So, what happened? In one year’s time, Davis has gone from the league’s darling up-and-comer to a B-list story. One issue relates to the two players from the list above without seven All-Star selections.
Players as gifted as Davis deserve better than to toil away in mediocrity, and right now, the New Orleans Pelicans are mediocre
The first, Bob McAdoo, was an unbelievable scorer in his early years, getting All-Star nods in five of his first six seasons. McAdoo even won league MVP for his 1974-75 effort. However, the rest of McAdoo’s career was plagued with injury, missing over 40 percent of his teams’ games through the rest of his career. McAdoo bounced around the league before finally settling into a bit role with the Showtime Lakers.
The other player, Ralph Sampson, had a successful first three seasons in Houston before lingering knee and back issues forced him to miss 279 games over his final eight seasons. At some point, potential branches off between “potential superstar” and “he could potentially miss half of this season.” Davis has been inactive from 68 games in his career for a variety of maladies, fostering pessimism regarding his long-term health. NBA what-ifs like McAdoo and Sampson have given reason for fans to be cautious in getting behind injury-prone stars. Davis runs the risk of falling into this category.
Another interruption to the Anthony Davis coming-out party has been the emergence of Karl-Anthony Towns. Towns took the NBA by storm last season, averaging 18 points and 10 rebounds, and unanimously winning Rookie of the Year. In the process, Towns joined his own exclusive list of past players to have had equally productive rookie seasons.
| Shooting | Per Game | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rk | Player | Season | Age | Tm | FG% | eFG% | FT% | TS% | PTS | TRB | BLK | WS |
| 1 | David Robinson | 1989-90 | 24 | SAS | .531 | .531 | .732 | .597 | 24.3 | 12.0 | 3.9 | 15.1 |
| 2 | Tim Duncan | 1997-98 | 21 | SAS | .549 | .549 | .662 | .577 | 21.1 | 11.9 | 2.5 | 12.8 |
| 3 | Shaquille O’Neal | 1992-93 | 20 | ORL | .562 | .562 | .592 | .584 | 23.4 | 13.9 | 3.5 | 10.4 |
| 4 | Karl-Anthony Towns | 2015-16 | 20 | MIN | .542 | .555 | .811 | .590 | 18.3 | 10.5 | 1.7 | 8.3 |
| 5 | Alonzo Mourning | 1992-93 | 22 | CHH | .511 | .511 | .781 | .586 | 21.0 | 10.3 | 3.5 | 8.2 |
Provided by Basketball-Reference.com
The Timberwolves added Towns to a roster which already included Andrew Wiggins, the previous Rookie of the Year recipient. Now, entering the 2016-17 season, the Wolves have both added Providence phenom Kris Dunn to a roster already brimming with young talent and hired Tom Thibodeau as head coach, a defensive savant who was able to revitalize Chicago Bulls basketball overnight.
The future in Minnesota is bright. It’s exciting to root for the Timberwolves. Meanwhile, after starting last season 1-11, the Big Easy became an immediate afterthought. The New Orleans Pelicans have nearly $15M committed to a mediocre rotation of centers. They have a starting point guard who has started less than 40 percent of Pelicans games since arriving in New Orleans.
They have a head coach who can’t figure out how to put the pieces together. The future in New Orleans is bleak. It’s discouraging. It’s Anthony Davis… and then what?
None of these questions seemed to matter until New Orleans bottomed out last season. Regardless of the talent pool around him, the future of Anthony Davis always seemed limitless. Although he put up great numbers last season it wasn’t enough to diffuse the overarching, disappointing narrative of his organization. More than that though, we all already knew he could put up great numbers – we wanted more.
Anthony Davis grew exceptionally over his first three years, but then seemed to stagnate in the fourth. A little regression from an unrealistic expectation made him a tired story. He became a little less like a basketball marvel and a little more like everyone else. The world found Karl-Anthony Towns, the next next big thing, and began to move on and salivate over Minnesota’s future.
Towns can spend his NBA infancy growing alongside the young nucleus the Timberwolves management has constructed.
For now, New Orleans does not offer that same luxury. New Orleans players missed 351 games last year due to injury and Davis was no exception. The roster is a hodge podge of NBA misfit toys whose weaknesses become more glaring every season. Therein lies the danger in growing so fast: the taller you are, the more obvious it becomes how short everyone around you still is. We should all continue to love Anthony Davis – love him enough to want better for him.
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Players as gifted as Davis deserve better than to toil away in mediocrity, and right now, the New Orleans Pelicans are mediocre. In all likelihood, Anthony Davis will have a great, maybe historic career. What remains to be seen is who will be there with him on that journey, teammates and fans alike.