Whether it be in the lore of an alien species landing on earth from Matt Moore’s article on 50 reasons you should watch an NBA game this year, or sitting in on Twitter, any Pelicans fan has more than likely started to think about what our new “Overlord” Anthony Davis and his amazing basketball potential could do this season.
Then, this happened.
#NBArank 3: Anthony Davis (@AntDavis23). http://t.co/4z7cdjhty6 pic.twitter.com/ZQ2LzW0t74
— NBA on ESPN (@ESPNNBA) October 27, 2014
WHAT?!?
Let me be the first person to admit, I very well could love Anthony Davis as a basketball player more than any other human on earth. I say earth, because, well, maybe Matt was right in saying Davis isn’t from this planet, maybe he is from Mars. Honestly, I have no clue, that isn’t relevant to the situation at hand. (Note: If you want a fun couple of minutes worth of twitter, and are ok with seeing some expletives, go take a look at the reactions to the tweet above.)
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For some context into why ESPN ranked Anthony Davis number three, I would like to visit another tweet sent out by ESPN earlier in the day.
Important #NBArank note: Each player's rating is a prediction of the QUALITY and QUANTITY of his contributions for the 2014-15 season.
— NBA on ESPN (@ESPNNBA) October 27, 2014
For starters, I’m pretty sure this tweet was in response to the amount of fans reacting to Kevin Durant being ranked number eight on the list, but that is neither here nor there.
ESPN THINKS THAT ANTHONY DAVIS IS GOING TO BE THE THIRD MOST PRODUCTIVE BASKETBALL PLAYER IN TERMS OF QUANTITY AND QUALITY THIS YEAR.
While Davis has put up numbers that have drawn comparison to Tim Duncan, and played a style which has drawn comparisons to Kevin Garnett, let’s take a minute to think about what is going on here. While I note that it is not impossible for this to happen, and I am one of the people who think he is going to take the league by storm very soon, the odds that Davis easily lives up to that ranking is very low due to the many things that can go wrong like nagging injuries to himself, injuries decimating the team around him and the general brutality of the Western Conference.
Yet through all of this one thing shines through. Davis reached this point at just 21 years old. With that in mind let’s play a little game I am going to call Predictions with Drew: A Fantasy Land of Numbers.
Let’s just say for the sake of this game, that Davis increases his per game numbers from year two to three, the same amount he did from year one to two.
By those improvements, at the age of 22, the age he will be when the season is over, Davis will have averaged 29.1 points, 11.8 rebounds, 2.2 assists, and 3.8 blocks per game. All I can say to that is wow. There isn’t much else to say to an average stat line like that, is there?
Obviously, that kind of improvement is incredibly unlikely to happen. If it happens we may as well just pencil Davis in for the Hall of Fame.
What is my point in all of this?
Let’s take a step back and appreciate what Anthony Davis is to us as basketball fans. Davis is a once in a generation talent who is, according to most sources, improving his game every time he steps foot on a basketball court. (Not literally, but you never know.) Where Davis is going to take the Pelicans as a team this season has yet to be seen, but the potential he has is as high as nearly any player in the league and people are expecting him to get there this season. Isn’t that fun?