The Los Angeles Lakers have started out the 2020-2021 regular season with a record of 5-2. This season has been surrounded by a lot of uncertainty and different circumstances. The pandemic and short offseason has affected the Lakers team. The Lakers were the last team in the Bubble with the Miami Heat. This means that they had the shortest amount of offseason and are already back to the grind.
While the offseason was short, the Lakers had a busy free agency and made some additions to their core that seem to compliment and better their team. The Lakers want to go back to back on championships.
Alongside LeBron James, Anthony Davis is part of the key components of the Lakers’ success. In the 2020-2021 season, Davis is sure not disappointing the Lakers’ organization. Davis sat out one game this season, but in the six games he’s played, his numbers don’t lie. Davis is averaging 21.7 points, 3.5 assists and 8.8 rebounds per game. When considering Davis’ role on the Lakers, he is fulfilling it and then some. Everyone in the NBA knows that Davis is an All-Star player and is expecting a monster season from him.
Davis is Getting Better
The factor that may set Davis apart from many others is his willingness to accept help and learn from those around him. The addition of Marc Gasol gives Davis the leading active center in assists as his teammate. Davis has started to change his game to become more of a playmaker as well as a scorer. Gasol is right there to help Davis get better and Davis knows that teams target him on defense. When double teams come, Davis wants to be able to find the open teammate and create other opportunities for his teammates. Along with Gasol, Davis also has LeBron as a teammate. As arguably the best player in the world, it is obvious that everyone on the Lakers team can learn something from LeBron. Davis is no exception to this rule and he wants to take skills from Lebron’s playmaking ability.
Anthony Davis on averaging career-high in assists & Marc Gasol's role in that: "And it's good that I have Marc here because I've been learning a lot from Marc as far as passing bigs from the top, the elbow, from the post. Just trying to figure out ways to steal that from him…" pic.twitter.com/ZqHeZ6MDjY
— Ryan Ward (@RyanWardLA) January 4, 2021
Even though Davis can be considered one of the best active players in the NBA right now, he doesn’t feel like his work is done. Davis wants to continually add to his game to make himself and his teammates better. He recognizes the need for adjustment throughout his career and wants to make those adjustments to get better. Davis is always evolving and this will only help the Lakers in their quest for another championship.
Information gathered from basketball-reference.com and silverscreenandroll.com.
You can “Like” The Game Haus on Facebook and “Follow” us on Twitter for more sports and esports articles from great TGH writers!