It's prime time for Anthony Davis to claim title as 'Best Player in World'

“I’m the best in the world. I think I do a lot of things that a lot of players can’t do as far as playing a complete game. I can play on the block, play on the perimeter, play defense on both ends, switch 1-5, guard, score the basketball.” -- Davis

Earlier this month, Lakers superstar Davis explicitly staked his claim as the best player in the world in an interview with Sports Illustrated. While Davis is unequivocally one of the premier players in the league and on track to be a Hall of Famer from our perspective here at Yardbarker, this proclamation probably raised a few eyebrows, especially after his ill-fated trade demand last season derailed any momentum he had going for him.

However, if you step back from the negative noise online and take a more macro view of Davis’ career, you’ll realize two things: (1) Davis’ past three seasons not only put him smack dab in the middle of the best player in the world argument but also in the pantheon conversation for Hall of Fame-caliber modern big men along with Shaquille O’Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon, Tim Duncan, David Robinson, Kevin Garnett and Patrick Ewing; and (2) if the respective careers of these comparable all-time great two-way bigs tell us anything, Davis is yet to hit his true prime.

Much like KG, Davis entered the NBA as a teenager and needed his rookie season to mature physically and test the limitations of his abilities. His stats were modest: 14 points, eight rebounds and about two blocks per game. However, it was clear there was superstar talent in those cartoonishly broad shoulders of his. In his second season, his game took a leap, as he averaged 21 points and 10 rebounds and led the league in blocks (2.8 per game). He made his first All-Star team that year and has never looked back. In his third season, Davis increased his scoring to over 24 points, grabbed 10 rebounds per game and again led the league in blocks (2.9 per game). Heading into his fourth season, 86.2 percent of participants in the NBA GM Survey voted Davis as the player they’d pick as their franchise cornerstone.  

But Davis suffered through an injury-riddled fourth year and despite posting almost identical numbers to those of his third season, the attention-deficit basketball community got wandering eyes for the likes of Karl-Anthony Towns and other shiny, new big men. Davis responded by unleashing a three-year stretch that stands up to that of any of the six aforementioned all-time greats (more on those guys later), averaging 28 points, 12 rebounds, three assists, two blocks and over one steal per game on 52-32-81 shooting splits. His player efficiency rating (PER) over those three years was 28.7. Speaking of PER, did you know Davis currently has the third-best career PER (27.4) in NBA history behind only Michael Jordan (27.9) and James (27.6)?

After a virtuoso second half of his 2017-18 season, there was some "Anthony Davis is the best player in basketball" buzz, as he finished third in the MVP vote and entered the 2018-19 season as the undisputed best big man in basketball. Unfortunately, the poorly handled (by many people on all sides) trade demand combined with the anti-Klutch Sports, anti-Lakers media narrative resulted in people forgetting how amazing The Brow really is. (His per-36 numbers last season, in case you cared, were the best of his career in points, rebounds and assists: 28 points, 13 rebounds, four assists, three blocks and two steals per 36 minutes to go along with a 30.3 PER. Down year, right?)

Criticize Davis all you want for forcing his way to the Lakers, but don’t act surprised when he and LeBron hit you with a “forgot about Dre” kind of season in 2019-2020.

“I want to be the most dominant player in the game, and I’m going to continue to do that.”  -- Davis

Guess what? If we look at the respective careers of Shaq, Hakeem, Duncan, Robinson, KG and Ewing as precedent for how AD’s career might play out, then we haven’t even witnessed his three-year peak yet! The careers of these six Hall of Fame big men seem to have followed one of two models: they either (A) consistently improved during their early 20s before ripping off a three-year peak of absolute dominance, like Duncan, Garnett and Ewing; or (B) experienced two distinct peaks — an early-career one where their raw athleticism overwhelmed the competition and an absolute one where their skills and basketball IQ caught up with their athleticism, like Shaq, Hakeem and Robinson.

Again, here are Davis’ per-game numbers the past three seasons:

Here are per-game, three-year primes of Duncan, Garnett and Ewing (Group A):

If Davis’ career plays out like those of the Hall of Famers in Group A, then he is only now about to enter his prime, as he turned 26 in March. His raw numbers suggest that he is already playing at a higher level than Duncan, Garnett and Ewing ever did. Granted, today’s free-flowing, up-tempo pace of play has inflated Davis’ stats a bit, so calling him “better” than these three is a stretch, for now. At the same time, predicting that he is approaching or about to hit a pantheon-level peak like these three hit is completely justifiable.

In fact, Davis’ past three seasons would seem to indicate that he’s destined to have a career more along the lines of the Hall of Famers in Group B, with an early athletic peak (now) and a later true peak (TBD). 

Here are the dual three-year peaks of O’Neal, Olajuwon and Robinson (Group B):

You will notice that the players in Group B all had a gap between their early athletic primes and their absolute primes. This was likely because their bodies began to mature and they no longer had that youthful, Energizer Bunny hop in their steps. (Notice the rebounds, blocks and steals in the early peak.) They had to focus on honing their respective crafts for a couple of years until their athleticism, skills and basketball IQ all met in the center of the Venn diagram for their true peak as basketball players. (Notice the MVPs, points, assists and PER in the latter peaks.) That "gap" between the athletic prime and absolute prime, by the way, weren’t exactly slouch years for these guys, as all three still dominated the sport.

If Davis’ career plays out like those of the Hall of Famers in Group B, then he’s probably in or near the end of his athletic peak and definitely hasn’t hit his absolute peak as a player. In other words, he probably won’t peak as a basketball player for another couple of years. Think about that for a minute: Davis is already a Hall of Fame-tracked player, but his best is yet to come.

If you think that’s scary, consider the fact that Davis has arguably the greatest player of all time still at or near the peak of his powers in James as his sidekick for the next few seasons. That means Davis is going to approach and hit his prime while defenses must account for another unguardable offensive talent. Don’t be surprised if Davis’ shooting efficiency and assist numbers jump during these initial years with LeBron.

The last time the NBA world was distracted enough with other young stars to forget about AD, he took his game to a new level. With the media fixated on the rise of Giannis, Embiid and Jokic as well as the exciting, new-look Staples Center lessees, people are forgetting about Davis again. Perhaps this season will remind them that we’re about to witness the absolute prime of one of the greatest big men of all time without yet knowing what his ceiling as a player is going to look like. 

So go ahead and call yourself the best player in the game, AD. I’m ready to believe you.