CBS Sports says Anthony Davis is one of 15 NBA player who have already hit their career ceiling.
Here is an excerpt:
3. Anthony Davis
Prior to the 2019 draft, which of course featured Zion Williamson, I remember talking to a scout who said “there’s no Anthony Davis is this draft,” which is another way of saying there’s no surefire two-way superstar. That’s what Davis was coming out of Kentucky — as close to a sure thing as anyone not named LeBron, and through eight seasons he has done nothing to invalidate that belief.
Davis is a four-time first-team All-NBA and four-time All-Defense selection. He has a legitimate case as a top-five player in the NBA; in fact, that might be a conservative assessment at this point. Everyone is talking about Davis right now after what he just did for the Lakers, but he was a monster in New Orleans too.
In his first playoff run, he averaged 31.5 points, 11 rebounds and three blocks a game on 54-percent shooting. In his second Pelicans postseason, he averaged 30.1 points, 13.4 rebounds and 2.4 blocks on 52-percent shooting. In his third postseason, he won his first championship with the Lakers while averaging 27.7 points courtesy of shooting numbers on par with Kevin Durant.
Durant, in fact, is a pretty perfect comp here. He was an all-time great in Oklahoma City who got even better with Golden State by teaming up with a player in Curry who demanded as much, if not more, attention as he did; his shots got easier, and thus he made greater percentages of them. Davis is roughly the same player he was in New Orleans; he’s just playing under better conditions next to LeBron.
Davis is still plenty young enough (27 years old) to still rise to a level of an overachiever, even relative to his enormous upside coming into the league. If he becomes one of the 15 best players ever, which I don’t think is out of reach, we’ll have another conversation then. For now, Davis has hit his extremely high ceiling just about dead on.
Scout’s Take: “Again, you can’t just brand a guy an All-NBA, MVP-type player coming out of college just because they go high in the draft or whatever, it just doesn’t work like that. Unless they’re Shaquille O’Neal or something where they have these features, physically, that just jump out at you. So when you talk about Anthony Davis, yeah, he jumped out at you at Kentucky. No question. The size, the athleticism, the shot blocking, the ability to play on perimeter. He was special, no doubt about it.”
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