Anthony Davis was the centerpiece of the return in one of the worst trades in NBA history. That is the fault of a lot of people — Nico Harrison’s first and foremost. It was not, in any way, shape or form, Anthony Davis’ fault. In a way, it should be a bit flattering. He is so good that he was capable of tricking an NBA team into giving away Luka Dončić. It’s just rare that things actually play out that way. Legacies are rarely all that nuanced.
In truth, it’s going to wind up overshadowing a really incredible NBA career. There is a very strong chance that decades from now, the single thing most fans remember about Anthony Davis is that he got the Los Angeles Lakers Luka Dončić. To Mavericks fans, he will probably be the player they had instead of the player they wanted. The 40-point masterclass Davis put on in Dallas’ season-ending loss to the Memphis Grizzlies will be the footnote. The story will be the end of a miserable half-season that started when the Mavericks acquired him.
It’s a terribly unfair fate for a truly special player, but it’s what he’s lived through his entire NBA career. At just about every turn, he’s been denied the credit he’s deserved or the circumstances he’s needed. He’s one of the best players of his era, and there’s a chance he’s still among the most underappreciated players ever.
When Davis was drafted No. 1 overall in 2012, he was immediately tasked with replacing Chris Paul, at the time the best player in New Orleans Hornets history. So excited was his new team about his upside that it rushed a rebuild around him that wound up costing him any chance of contending with the organization that drafted him.
Between the year he was drafted and the year he was traded, the Pelicans did not keep a single player they drafted in the first round for even one full year. They traded most of their picks away for veterans before they used them. The players they did draft, like Buddy Hield, were dealt as rookies. They wasted cap space on Tyreke Evans, Solomon Hill, E’Twaun Moore and other underwhelming pieces. Never mind the fact that former NBA commissioner David Stern called the man tasked with building these teams for Davis, Dell Demps, “a lousy general manager” on the record. Davis never won much in New Orleans, and like most stars, he took blame for that.
The first year he left, he should have quieted all doubters. He won a championship for the Los Angeles Lakers in 2020. Instead, critics call it a “bubble title.” He likely would have won Defensive Player of the Year had the season progressed as normal. It’s frequently forgotten that eventual winner Giannis Antetokounmpo got injured right before the season was stopped. Instead, he’s still lobbying to this day for the trophy that it took a global pandemic to deny him. He still hasn’t gotten a parade for that 2020 title, making him the rare star who hasn’t gotten to celebrate winning a ring with his fans. They couldn’t even do so the next season, as games were largely played in empty arenas.
After winning that title, he was named one of the 75 greatest players in NBA history. Notably, Nikola Jokić, who had not won an MVP yet, did not. Since then, Jokić’s ascent has turned Davis into a bit of a target largely because Jokić has now beaten Davis badly in the playoffs twice. Whenever Jokić’s snub comes up, it’s often paired with the belief that he should’ve gotten the spot that went to Davis. Both were and remain deserving, but praise tends not to register without accompanying rage.
Meanwhile, Davis faces criticism that most of his contemporaries escape. Since joining the Lakers, he’s played in more games than Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. So why is he labeled “Street Clothes,” “A-DNP” and “Anthony Day-to-Davis?” He spent the past few weeks playing through an injury to try to take a play-in team he just joined into the playoffs. Can he get a shred of credit for that?
That’s where he finds himself today. Maybe he played out the end of this season to try to disprove these unfair narratives. Maybe he did so as a solid to Harrison, who worked with him at Nike and put him in this position in the first place by making the Dončić trade. Regardless, Davis is now stuck on a mediocre team with a miserable fanbase and a precious few prime seasons remaining. His best-case scenario in Dallas involves waiting out the next nine-or-so months for Kyrie Irving to return from his torn ACL and give him another chance to contend for a non-bubble championship. More likely, he’ll waste his best remaining seasons on Harrison’s farce. His legacy will be inexorably attached to a trade he didn’t make.
It’s been a remarkably unlucky career from a remarkably talented player. Davis has done more with his circumstances than most could have. How many 10-time All-Stars can you name off the top of your head? He could’ve made the Hall of Fame frittering away his entire career on those bad Pelicans teams. He deserved more than that, and he deserves more than he’s getting in Dallas right now.
There’s still time. Davis is only 32. Maybe Harrison’s inevitable downfall comes soon enough for his successor to trade Davis to a more stable team. Maybe he gets to take one last swing at a standard, COVID-free championship, or at least ensure that the last thing fans remember about him isn’t who he was traded for.
Davis isn’t Dončić. Very, very few players in NBA history have ever been. But if there’s justice in the NBA, he’ll be remembered for more than the player he wasn’t. Anthony Davis is one of the best players of his era, and it would be nice if just once, the stars could align in such a way that he could actually be appreciated for that.
