86.2% of NBA GMs would choose Anthony Davis to start a franchise
By Tom West
Instead of LeBron James, Stephen Curry or Kevin Durant, the player that nearly every NBA GM would rather start a franchise with is Anthony Davis.
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When it comes to choosing a player to start a franchise with in the NBA, there’s almost too much talent to choose from. The point guard position is easily one of the deepest positions in sports with countless superstar players. There are elite wing players such as James Harden, Kevin Durant and Paul George. Or, when looking for a big man, there are young stars such as Jahlil Okafor and Karl-Anthony Towns, and established players such as Blake Griffin and DeMarcus Cousins.
Essentially, there are plenty of good choices available. However, in the NBA.com 2015-16 GM survey, they almost exclusively chose one player: Anthony Davis.
To be precise, 86.2 percent of GM’s chose the New Orleans Pelicans’ superstar power forward as their ideal player to start a franchise with. Second place wasn’t close either, as Durant came in with a mere 6.9 percent of the votes. As for LeBron, who earned 50 percent of the GM’s votes prior to last season, he also earned just 6.9 percent of the votes.
While it may initially be surprising that they would rather build a franchise around Davis instead of the unquestioned best player in the league (LeBron), it makes perfect sense when creating a team for the future that won’t just contend for a season or two, but for the next decade.
Davis is only just getting started at only 22 years of age, yet he’s already a two-time All-Star, averaged 24.4 points, 10.2 rebounds, 1.5 steals and 2.9 blocks per game last season, and is widely regarded as a top three player at the very least.
It’s impossible to argue with the immense promise that Davis has. Meanwhile, LeBron is already 30 years old. Even though he’s still the best player on the planet and was able to play 45.8 minutes per game in the Finals last season and averaged 35.8 points, 13.3 rebounds, and 8.8 assists against the league’s best defense, he isn’t the best choice for the future.
He still has the ability to do almost anything on the floor, but it can’t be denied that his explosiveness and ability to posterize defenders has started to decrease slightly. Plus, even if the drop in his athleticism is minor at best, he doesn’t have the room to grow like a superstar player who’s eight years younger.
As for players like Curry, Harden, Durant and even Cousins, it’s still easy to choose Davis over anyone else.
They’re all elite scorers and two of them are MVP winners. It seems almost foolish to rule them out so quickly, especially as those four players are all no more than 27 years old. However, when considering how rare talented big men are, who can excel at both ends of the floor and carry their team in a multitude of different ways, there’s no young player who comes close to what Davis can do at just 22 years of age.
The choice for right now may still be LeBron, but the best choice for the future has to be Anthony Davis. He can simply do far too much at both ends of the floor to be overlooked.
It’s scary to try and think that he’s not even reached his potential yet.