Anthony Davis is hoping to compete for an NBA Championship next season with the Los Angeles Lakers. While that hasn’t been the case off-late, Davis emphasized that the goal for the franchise is still to win titles while revealing how he needs all his teammates to hold themselves accountable as they pursue that goal.
“The goal at the end of the day is still to win championships. You can’t skip steps. The first step is we’re going to hold guys accountable. We’re going to show up to work, and if something goes wrong, we’re gonna hold guys accountable, and then from there, we’ll figure it out.”
Davis averaged 24.7 points, 12.6 rebounds, 3.5 assists, and 2.3 blocks in 76 games last season, staying healthy and playing as one of the best defenders in the NBA. The Lakers were a strong defensive unit anchored by Davis, with many feeling that he was the team’s best player last season over LeBron James.
James averaged 25.7 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 8.3 assists in 71 games last season, so the Lakers failures can’t be blamed on the star duo. There was a lack of accountability in the Lakers locker room last season, with coach Darvin Ham losing the locker room midway through the season as players blamed him for the team’s struggles while he blamed the players.
Under coach JJ Redick, the Lakers hope to be a more self-aware and honest franchise where the players’ voices will be heard. There’s a delicate balance to be struck, but the Lakers will hope to progress into a title charge on a roster that looks nearly identical to last season, outside the rookie additions of Dalton Knecht and Bronny James.
Have The Lakers Failed LeBron And Davis?
It is shocking that the Lakers were unable to be competitive while having two top-15 players in the NBA who performed nearly all of last season at the highest level. Previous seasons were impacted by poor injury luck for both LeBron and Davis, but the duo might have been wasted over the 2023-24 season as the Lakers were uncompetitive.
Tim Bontemps slammed the Lakers after the Olympics for wasting the LeBron-Davis era on the franchise.
“The single biggest takeaway from this whole tournament is that it showed me how terribly the Lakers have been run for most of the past several years where you have LeBron James.”
“The fact that the team has been built so poorly around him and Anthony Davis, that they have been an afterthought the vast majority of the run and especially the last few years… LeBron still has the ability to be a difference-making player at the highest level, and with him and AD, it remains unfathomable that this team remains irrelevant, and that’s what they are irrelevant.”
The Lakers will hope to find magic in their rotations and get improved production from the same roster we saw be a first-round exit last season. They were also in the Play-In, firmly establishing themselves as one of the many mid-table teams in the league. Improving that ceiling without a major roster move will be nearly impossible, so the team is hoping JJ Redick can be a coaching savant from day one and keep the ship afloat.
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