Anthony Davis Discussion: Thanks For The Ring AD!!!

So OK I'm back in. And my comments are based on the bolded stuff where your opinions repeatedly posted over the years on his BIG shortcomings do differ somewhat from mine and seems black and white for you with no shades of gray. But as a fellow member here I have always enjoyed, I hope that last quote I have bolded is not referring to me! No one is calling you a "hater", yesterday and today at least, just taking issue with some of your ongoing logic and criteria rating AD AND how you compare AD and other players to Kobe Bryant, my all time favorite Laker. Kobe was a one off. No one in the history of the league or probably any sport for as long as his career lasted .... played through the severity and variety of injuries that he did and did it well.

 

Oh heck no, I'm not referring to you or @abeer3 as fanboys and would never do so. To be fair, we ALL have fanboy moments, and you guys are absolutely on the "PRO AD" train at the moment. Last year when he played, he was an absolute difference maker. The couple prior years, I didn't feel the same impact. I don't think you guys did either, but it seems those times are now put in the "injured bucket", and I just don't support that theory 100%.

And yes, there will never be another Kobe most likely. It's an impossible standard to live up to. I miss him. I miss having a player who was always prepared, always willing to play through pain, always in shape, always willing to take the last shot, always working, etc. He would never say in an interview he took 4 months off. You don't do that as a professional athlete if you want to be taken seriously. I'll take 100% serious when he takes his craft 100% serious. Sounds like he's headed in the right direction.

At this stage of an athlete's career, you HAVE TO put in the work, as you can no longer rely on natural talent alone after 30. It takes more effort to get and stay in shape. I'm hoping we see a jump in his this year, and that he's looking at an MVP type of year. I also hope for a reduced Lebron role that allows him to have his positives accentuated and negatives hidden. We Don't always get what we want.

 

Following this conversation I can't tell who is kidding half the time...lol. I am very much looking forward to seeing AD play after the work he has put in. Even though I am a huge AD fan I have criticized him for lack of work in the off seasons and as good as he has looked at times I do expect more out of him. I have talked about him fading from view at times and been hammered for it. I will admit AD is so good IMO I expect MVP type play from him all the time. Not all injuries are preventable, but with the extra work I expect to see AD staying on his feet more and have better balance. Possibly leading to fewer injuries. In my weird way I see expecting more out of him as a complement.

 

All the time lost to injuries I would bet that AD has had which happened because of “bad balance” falling to the floor would absolutely PALE in comparison to the time lost to s*** happens type injuries that have zero to do with conditioning.

 

i'm really trying to think of the time that AD hurt himself because of balance that would be gained if only he'd trained harder. people act like he's had a ton of muscle pulls or something. this isn't james harden straining a hammy because he laid around all summer.

 

falling down all the time contributes to those pesky accumulation injuries. He's had 14 of those since he has been a Laker.

(I made that up to keep the narrative going) Ok, I'm ready to drop the topic now and root for him to be MVP. Hoping for the best.

 

that's like a decade in basketball dog years

What have you done for me lately? And why did you skip two years of effort after your first chip?

 

Are you saying the ring meant jack only 3 years ago, and without me looking it up he didn’t have an ankle or planted leg hyper extended knee injury that didn’t contribute the next year against Phoenix when we were on our way to winning that series, or his and Bron’s injuries AND the Russ debacle with the crap roster last year and us missing them were due to AD not giving it his all when healthy? Seriously?

 

hahahahahaha, just let it go. Not everyone will always agree with you, and not all fans' takes will should be taken that seriously.

I'm glad he has fans that feel stronger about his past performances than I do. But we'll never fully agree on this one. And it doesn't mean I don't dearly love you and appreciate you regardless. If I'm smoking crack, just leave me in the corner with my pipe for awhile on this one. Once I'm "clean", I'm sure I'll see things your way.

 

I mean you claimed you weren’t even hardly watching the games over and over last few years just checking highlights and box scores.

 

this is very true

I can only speak to what I saw when I was watching

If I'm being unfair to AD, I profusely apologize. I don't mean to be unnecessarily spreading hate/doubt. Just calling things as I saw them - when I did watch. I see him as your 2nd best player on a championship team. I haven't seen what is needed to be "The Guy" yet. In spurts yes, but even Lebron was left saying WTFlip to him on the closeout game with Denver. He felt left on an island, and his #2 just didn't bring it. I don't feel the need to defend that or gloss it over.

I see us needing to groom someone to be that role of closer as Bron continues his decline. I don't think AD is your closer. We'll need to be winning by committee like the Detroit team that beat us. A team of very good players all around with good leadership and coaching.

 

I see it both way with AD as he's similar to guys like Rasheed Wallace and Derrick Coleman is that on offense you get these glimpses where it's like how are you supposed to stop this s***. Just overpowers or shoots over small guys and is just too quick for big to keep up him. The dude has literally gotten the best (and what I mean best is he's made these guys look like scrubs) of guys like KAT, Embiid, and he clearly outplayed Jokic just a few years ago!

The regression on his jumpshot and his inability to handle double team well plus all the injuries make it really hard to watch at times though. Seeing KAT go off on him a few years ago was depressing as we just saw AD make him his b**** over and over again the year before.

But that being said on defense though the dude is an all-time great: honestly he's like prime Dwight, Hakeem whoever out there. He's still a force on offense as well I mean you still have to double-team him and account for where he is on the court.

I don't know maybe he's going to go down like Kevin Mchale - Barkley still says he was the best player he ever played against but McHale as he great as he was never put up the numbers of Bird and never won an MVP. If he can just fix his damn jumpshot he could clearly be a number 1 and be in the MVP conversation

 

When AR isn’t having to demonstrate proper box out techniques to the squad he has been working with AD on his technique and psyche with his J pumping up his progress to the media. AR …. MVP.

 

Kobe was the unicorn of pain tolerance.

 

If that's how he's approaching the year, he'll be a Top 5 player. Meaning he'll finish 15th in MVP voting and 12th in DPOY votes.

He had a couple moves against Looney where he just made him look silly.

 

One more point in AD's defense: I don't think anyone was asked to do as much on defense as he was last year. It's really hard to keep your energy level up for offense: your legs just go when you're putting that much effort on D (rim protector, switch, etc.) that he did last year.

 

yeah, he basically can't be defended in isolation (but he's a bad offensive player by reputation, of course). i've accepted that AD is just not going to get any credit for anything, though. i keep hearing "if he does this, he'll be the mvp" stuff, and that's just not going to happen. he averages 26 and 13 while being the league's best interior defender (best defender, period, imo) and it's a lot of ho-hum and really flat out complaining.

for whatever reason*, the fans and media just hate the guy.

*my guess is a combination of lack of charisma (he's just not super interesting or exciting as a persona), the lebron factor (his teammates basically can't be allowed credit for anything, even now), and the way things ended in NO (trade demand, went to the lakers). then the reason laker fans hate him is he gets hurt a lot.

 

maybe if he shaved that unibrow

*just offering suggestions

* or don't get blocked out effectively by guard
* don't disappear for quarters at a time
* Don't fall down so much

These are just things I've heard other fans say.