Thread: Anthony Davis is NEXT

Anthony Davis is considered the Next big thing in college basketball and will be featured in the Jan. 9th NEXT edition of ESPN the Magazine.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

Now he's a menace. Davis had blocked 14.74 percent of two-point field goals taken against him through Dec. 17 (fifth nationally), with 4.4 rejections per game (second). When Davis had seven blocks in a win over Kansas at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 15, Calipari says he texted 16-year NBA vet Marcus Camby (whom he coached at UMass): "Remind you of you when you were younger?" Camby laughed and responded yes. Then Cal gets serious: "Anthony is ahead of Marcus at this stage. Marcus was good but not like this as a freshman."

Davis' impact on defense is where his length and athleticism are most apparent, but it's his offensive potential -- the ballhandling skills and shooting touch Uncle Keith instilled -- that persuaded Calipari to switch up his dribble-drive motion (DDM) offense. At both Memphis and Kentucky, DDM always worked with a big who ran the floor for mostly transition buckets or putbacks. But with soft-handed Davis playing alongside preseason All-America post Terrence Jones, Calipari tweaked the strategy to include more pick-and-roll action. So far, Davis has scored on half the pick-and-roll possessions he's run (1.11 points per possession), mostly on a solid-looking 19-foot jumper.

Of course, things are more interesting when Davis goes up for breakaway dunks, which is how he scores most of his 11.8 ppg. He's easy to find on lobs, and his explosive vertical makes for a show. "He puts his teeth on the rim," Calipari says. "He's jumping that high with his size, which means his arm is probably a foot above the square." It's just one more way Anthony Davis has made a name for himself.
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