The Los Angeles Lakers got a massive boost with the return of superstar big man Anthony Davis in the middle of their Grammy road trip. Davis immediately showed his importance and looked every bit like the difference-maker the team needs him to be on both ends of the court.
After a solid outing in his return game against the Brooklyn Nets where he showed flashes of what he brings to the Lakers, Davis shook off an early wrist injury to outplay MVP candidate Joel Embiid in Philadelphia.
His 31-point, 12-rebound, 4-block performance was one of Davis’ best of the year and reminded everyone of just how talented the big man is.
Davis would unfortunately sit out the Lakers’ next game in Charlotte, but returned with a 27-point effort against the Atlanta Hawks. With Davis the question is always going to be his health and the Lakers star insisted that he is feeling just fine physically.
“I feel good now,” Davis said. “I think I’m starting to find a rhythm, my old rhythm to be my old self. But also, my body is feeling good besides the MCL this year, which I’m still trying to get back all the way healthy, and the wrist a couple games ago. But besides that, I feel great.”
It is a bit concerning that Davis did admit his MCL still isn’t 100 percent healthy, but he has not looked limited in any way since returning to the court. Likewise, the wrist hasn’t seemed to hamper Davis in any way as he is shooting 58.5% in his last two games despite the injury.
Davis is a true difference-maker and his play both offensively and defensively is exactly what the Lakers need in order to turn things around. Unfortunately, the same issue keeps popping up for both Davis and the Lakers as a whole and that is health.
If Davis is able to push through these issues and contribute at a high level, and the rest of the team, particularly LeBron James, can come back, the Lakers will finally have a chance to have their full roster available, build some chemistry, and play at the championship level they envisioned at the start of the season.
Anthony Davis remains confident in Lakers
Even with all of the struggles and issues the Lakers have had so far this season, the team has maintained belief that they can improve, and Davis is right in line with everyone else.
“I still believe that we got a good team,” he said. “We just haven’t been all the way healthy for our team with all our players. ‘Bron is now out, I just came back. I think the most frustrating part is that we just can’t finish games. We had a lot of games that we had won and teams come back and beat us.”
“So that’s the frustrating part, like we’re frustrated right now because we were supposed to win this game. It’s self-inflicted mistakes, so that’s the frustrating part because we can control those mistakes.
“Trae hit tough shots, you can’t control that, but the little things, offensive rebounds, turnovers, you can control those things to give yourselves a chance to win the basketball game. So that’s the most frustrating part, but I still have belief.”
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