For most of Anthony Davis’ career, he has avoided playing the five like the plague.
In New Orleans and Los Angeles, he has made it clear to his coaches that he prefers to play power forward, a position he has found great successes in over the past 9 years.
Considering AD’s troubling injury history, it makes sense he would want to avoid rubbing shoulders with bigger, stronger opponents on a night-to-night basis.
In this upcoming campaign, though, the Lakers superstar is apparently willing to slide down to the center spot long-term, a rather surprising decision given his previous behavior.
“Rich Paul was telling other agents at the Chicago combine that LeBron and AD were sliding to the 4 and 5,” said Bleacher Report’s Jake Fischer.
It will certainly be interesting to see how Davis and LeBron are able to adjust to their new positions, but it’s a good sign they were willing to make the adjustment at all.
According to L.A. basketball legend James Worthy, the guy should do whatever it takes to help his team reach their ultimate potential:
“You want to make opponents make adjustments. Him at the five shooting three is going to pull Gobert out and they’re going to have to put somebody small on him and he can take advantage of that. I think he needs to look at what position best suits the team and what position best suits how they wanna play before he just says ‘Ahh, one or the other.’”
Of course, Worthy made sure to note that he didn’t understand AD’s reluctance to play center in the first place:
“I’ve never been one of those players to say ‘I don’t wanna play three, I wanna play four. I wanna play.’ I don’t know what the problem is, maybe who he defends or where he is on the floor. I think the five is a good spot for him. Because other fives don’t have a shot at guarding him.”
https://twitter.com/SpectrumSN/status/1438697076834009098
Having the Lakers play small-ball will help them keep up with younger, faster opponents while also allowing the team to surround their ‘big three’ with multiple long-distance shooters at once.
When you look at the pieces they have in place, and the modern trends of basketball, it’s probably the smartest adjustment they could have made.
We’ll see if it works out for them.
