Lakers News: Jeanie Buss Believes This LA Star Looked Like An MVP When Available

He did.

Your Los Angeles Lakers may have had a rough first few months to their 2022-23 season, but even with a roster clogged by ill-fitting parts, injury-prone stars LeBron James and Anthony Davis did look like two of the better players in the league when they suited up.

During a new interview on The Athletic NBA Show, Buss sang the praises of Anthony Davis' pre-injury performance during the club's otherwise-bumpy 2022-23 tart.

"Last season started off really tough," Buss acknowledged. The club had gone 3-10 across their first 13 contests, anchored by ill-fitting point guards Russell Westbrook and Patrick Beverley playing major minutes.

"I was like, 'I'm not going to survive this, this is going to be really rough.' I was getting death threats."

That is objectively insane. Do people not appreciate that, you know, this is just a game, and also the Lakers had won a title literally three seasons prior?

"And then the team, something just clicked, and Anthony Davis being healthy, there's an argument to be made that he was the best player in the NBA when he was playing," Buss noted.

Davis was incredible when he was available during the regular season, and indeed looked like one of the better two-way players in the league and a fringe MVP candidate when he was available. A foot injury midseason sidelined him for 20 straight games, and he was never quite the same.

Across 56 contests (54 starts) in 2022-23, the 6'10" big man averaged 25.9 points on 56.3% shooting from the floor, a career-most 12.5 rebounds, 2.6 assists, 2.0 blocks and 1.1 steals a night. His offense has fallen off from his early Lakers/late Pelicans peak on that end of the floor, and he can no longer reliably make a jumper beyond the paint. But he's still an excellent finisher inside and, more imperatively, one of the best defensive big men in the league. 

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