Lakers: NBA Expert Not Ready to Write-Off Anthony Davis

The Ringer's Ryen Russillo explains why Anthony Davis has earned some patience from Lakers fans.

When healthy, Anthony Davis is one of the best players in the NBA. Problem is, the Lakers big man has not been healthy the last two seasons. Far from it. He's played in just 76 of the Lakers last 154 regular season games. 

As any fanbase would, the Lakers faithful have taken notice. Some have even supported the idea of trading the oft-injured Davis this offseason. 

One expert isn't exactly ready to rule out a return to greatness for Anthony Davis. The Ringer's Ryen Russillo explained why he's not ready to sell his Davis stock quite yet on an episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast. The Lakers superstar came up while the two NBA experts were having a conversation about the future of Zion on the New Orleans Pelicans.

"Here's what I do, if you show me a sliver of greatness, I'm going to try to hang with you as long as I possibly can. Think of this as a junior version of my Anthony Davis [take]. It's kind of like the Anthony Davis thing. Everyone of you guys thinks he sucks and he's going to suck for the rest of his career. I'm not there yet. I'm just not. Maybe I'll be wrong, but I'm as patient as someone that used to be great as I am resistant to anoint Herb Jones the building block over Zion."

It seems like decades ago, but Davis was a first-team All-NBA player in 2019-2020 and, along with LeBron, was a huge reason the Lakers won the 2020 title. 

Davis is injury prone. There's no debating that topic, but in defense of Davis, both of his serious injuries this year were on somewhat fluky plays. In December, Minnesota forward Jaden McDaniels fell backwards into AD's knee on a somewhat routine offensive action the Lakers were running.

Davis sprained his MCL on the play and missed 17 games. He returned in late January. Then, 11 games later, AD suffered a foot injury after landing on Rudy Gobert's foot while going for a rebound. 

One could argue that both incidents were completely unavoidable.

Davis is still just 29-years-old. There's plenty of chapters to be written in his story. It's rare that a four-time All-NBA player just evaporates before even hitting 30.