• Stephen A. Smith is pessimistic about Anthony Davis having a healthy season with the Lakers
• He questioned what exactly is wrong with Davis that makes him so injury-prone
• Davis ended the 2022-23 season healthy and missed no playoff games
Anthony Davis ended the 2022-23 season by being available for the Lakers throughout their late-season push for the postseason and then the playoffs. Despite that, Stephen A. Smith doesn’t believe in Davis’s ability to stay healthy next season.
“I don’t believe in Anthony Davis in terms of his availability, I’m not talking about his skill set, I’m not talking about whether he cares or not, I’m talking about injury-prone, sporadic. There’s something going on with him… It’s like this brother ate a healthy meal one day and a bag of Skittles the next.”
Davis’ healthy stretch through the end of last season meant that the Lakers believed in him enough to offer him a three-year, $186 million extension. His future on the Lakers is secured as he gets older, with the contract expected to take him till 2028. The Lakers center played just 56 games last season.
The Lakers Success Depends On Anthony Davis
When Davis joined the Lakers in the prime of his career in 2019, LeBron James was already laying out a situation where Davis was the primary option for the Lakers with LeBron in a supporting role.
We saw that through the 2019-20 regular season, as Davis averaged more points than LeBron with James averaging a league-high in assists. They won a championship executing that formula, though LeBron took over during the Finals.
In 2020-21 and 2021-22, we saw Davis miss 78 out of 154 regular-season games played. This led to a first-round exit in 2021, as AD got hurt in the playoffs as well and missed the playoffs in 2022.
With Davis healthy through the end of last season, the Lakers could make a push for the Western Conference Finals, languishing outside the top 19 in the West for a large portion of the season due to AD’s injury problems to start the year.
Can The Lakers Emerge Out Of The West?
By virtue of having LeBron James and Anthony Davis, we saw the Lakers turn around a doomed season in just a month and a half and be one of the two best Western Conference teams at the end of the season. They were no match for the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference Finals, showing that they still had a lot of work to do before being able to make a Finals run.
The franchise is hoping they’ve done that this summer. Instead of a panic trade sending away depth for someone like Kyrie Irving, the team re-signed Austin Reaves, Rui Hachimura, and D’Angelo Russell. They brought in complementary options in positions they needed, signing Taurean Prince, Gabe Vincent, Jaxson Hayes, and Cam Reddish to bolster their bench.
With a mix of young and old stars and a lot of defensive versatility along with depth, the Lakers seem prepared to bear all the problems of the regular season, injuries included, to compete for their 18th NBA Championship.
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