Did Anthony Davis Get Snubbed from MVP Candidate List?

With NBA.com’s list of top 10 MVP candidates excluding the New Orleans Pelicans Anthony Davis, should he be considered a snub?

Anthony Davis may have won the 2017 All-Star MVP award, but he is still short of being this season’s league MVP.

According to NBA.com’s Kia Race to the MVP Ladder, which delivers weekly rankings of MVP candidates, Anthony Davis has yet been mentioned within the top 10 as a 2016-2017 MVP candidate. Davis is not even a mention in the next five after the top 10.

As of week 18, the top 10 MVP candidates according to the site has the following rankings:

T1) James Harden; T1) Russell Westbrook; 3) LeBron James; 4) Kawhi Leonard; 5) Isaiah Thomas; 6) John Wall; 7) Steph Curry; 8) Gordon Hayward; 9) Paul George; and 10) Mike Conley.

Anthony Davis is fourth in the league in scoring and has had another stellar season overall. Despite that, it looks as if it has not been enough. Perhaps it could be due to the rest of his stat line being flat, compared to his career average.

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Another reason could be the fact that the New Orleans Pelicans are out of playoff spot. That has negatively overshadowed Davis’ potentially-MVP candidacy. But even then, Davis has been one of the best players overall in the league. He has shown consistency throughout this season and clearly improved as a scoring machine.

So has Anthony Davis been snubbed off the weekly list? Here’s a look at how he stands next to the some of the other names on the list:

As already mentioned, Anthony Davis is forth in the league with 27.8 points per game. That’s an improvement from last season’s 24.3. Russell Westbrook, James Harden and Isaiah Thomas, all MVP candidates, lead as the top three with 31.4 PPG, 29.4 PPG, and 29.1 PPG respectively.

Among current candidates, only one player this season is shooting over 50.0 percent from the field. That is LeBron James, averaging 54.3 percent. Anthony Davis, with another 50-percent-plus season is shooting 50.2 percent. That is on over 20 attempts per game. However, what doesn’t show up on the stat line is that his 27.8 points and 50.2 percentage comes from a myriad of difficult shot makes.

The main obstacle this season, however, has seen a swift rise in talent from a multitude of players. That is causing stiff competition for Davis. It should be realistically understood that even if Anthony Davis had his name within the top 10, he still [probably] would not win.

Players like Russell Westbrook and James Harden have exploded into the spotlight. They been huge right from the start of the season and have been hogging much of that spotlight since. Triple-doubles, multiple 50-plus point games and surprising versatility of skills have stolen the opportunity of talk about any other players this season.

Then there are players such as Isaiah Thomas and John Wall. They have shown ridiculous and impressive improvements in their playing levels. Finally, you have players such as LeBron James, Steph Curry, and Kevin Durant. Those guys are just so good, their names are always going to be on that list.

For Anthony Davis, that means whatever it is he is doing is still not good enough. Not in today’s NBA at least. This season has shown how competitive it has now become to have regards as the best player in the league.

Although Davis may have improved slightly from his previous season, it’s going to take a whole lot more. The good news is that this superstar is still young and learning. His scoring per game may have taken a leap, but if there is one thing he needs to improve on, it is his passing plays.

Davis has once said himself during in his rookie year that he believes he can be a playmaker. There is no doubt as a big man Davis is extremely versatile. But only a sliver of his true potential has been on display.

Averaging 2.1 assists per game this season for Davis is still a far reach in being a running name for the MVP list. Kevin Garnett, one of Davis’ idols, averaged 5.0 assists per game during his MVP season. Even other bigs such as Tim Duncan, Dirk Nowitzki and Shaquille O’Neal had career highs in assists per game during their MVP seasons.

What fans are witnessing this season within the NBA may have been a reawakening of the ultra-competitive level field among the best. The bulk of talented players in today’s game may be one of the most exciting since the 1990s, which unfortunately makes it just that much difficult to become the best.

Even though it wasn’t Anthony Davis’ year, opportunities still lay ahead of him. On average, it takes a player approximately six seasons to win his first MVP award and Davis is in his fifth.

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This means Davis has plenty of years left in his prime to not only improve, but to eventually become the best player in the league. For this specially-gifted player, this writer can only make a prediction that it will take some time within the next three seasons for him to be an MVP contender.

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