The Lakers are off to a 3-0 start behind Anthony Davis, who LeBron James called MVP caliber after the team’s win over the Kings.
Awards are not won or lost in the opening week of the season, but first impressions can go a long way.
In that sense, Anthony Davis could hardly have impressed more across the team’s first three contests. After back-to-back 35-point games to open the year, he settled for just 31 points against the Kings.
In franchise history, and it’s a rich history, AD joins a short list of Hall of Famers to have such a hot start to a campaign.
Anthony Davis is the 4th Laker to start a season with three consecutive 30-point performances, joining:
— Elgin Baylor
— Jerry West
— Kobe Bryant
— Khobi Price (@khobi_price) October 27, 2024
There are many reasons Davis has had so much success to open the year. Coming into the season, it was made known that he would be the hub of the offense, but seeing how that has played out has been interesting.
The team’s focus has been to get the ball into AD’s hands often throughout the game. But it’s not simply giving him the ball, but making sure he gets the ball in advantageous spots, as head coach JJ Redick talked about after the team’s win against the Kings on Sunday.
“We’re very intentional about trying to take away the help,” Redick said. “So, because of his physicality and skill, he’s a tough one-on-one cover. He’s really good at drawing fouls. I think it’s a byproduct of us being mindful about the space we’re giving him and how we’re giving him that space.”
Getting AD into those spots has allowed him to get into a rhythm. That can be seen in his jump shooting, most notably his 3-point shooting where he is now 40% early in the year. It’s a very small sample size, but it’s one that includes a big shot against the Kings on Sunday to help seal the win.
After his own heroics in that contest, LeBron James spoke about Davis, calling him an MVP-caliber player.
“He commands so much attention,” LeBron said. “Defensively, he continues to dominate defensive rebounds at a high level. When we get to our switching groups, he can switch out on the perimeter and make it tough on them. Offensively, we can find him on mismatches. A lot of teams in our league like to switch guards onto bigs. We have one guy you can’t really switch a guard onto. That creates mismatches.
“We encourage, coaches encourage him, to shoot that three ball. Probably the biggest shot of the night is him making that three tonight. That made it easy on me. All I got to do is get it on time and on target.”
It’s such a wonderful change of pace to see a coach not only prioritize getting AD the ball, but doing so with purpose. Redick isn’t just giving the ball to Davis in the post or in traffic. He’s shaping his offense around giving Davis room to work and the Lakers are finding success as a result.
It’s amazing how such small changes are creating such drastically improved results with basically the same roster.