Hoops Tonight - Top 25 Players in the NBA: Anthony Davis is the best DEFENSIVE player in the NBA

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let's talk some basketball. This is probably the ranking in my top ten that's gonna have people disagree with the most, although Luca was one that a lot of people disagreed with, But I know that generally speaking around the league, people are pretty low on Anthony Davis, and a big part of that is he's not nearly the offensive player that

his peers are on this list. As we look at the twelve guys from you know, Devin Booker at the twelve spot up the list, every one of those guys is a better offensive player than Anthony Davis and it's not particularly close, to be honest, And I think that that's the most easily digestible basketball trade, you know, the ability to put the ball in the basket or to help other people put the ball in the basket, and

so people focus on that a great deal. And it's important to acknowledge that Ad is a good offensive player, but he's not at the level of those guys. That said, I thought he demonstrated after the trade deadline this year pretty resoundingly that he is the very best defensive player

in the league when he is healthy. And you could argue that just Anthony Davis's individual value to the Lakers as a defensive fulcrum is every bit as important to that unit and the way they win basketball games as on the offensive end, guys like Steph and Nikola jokichar

to their individual offenses. The Lakers were one of the worst defenses in the league this year when Ad was off the floor, they had a one eighteen defensive rating to give you an idea that would follow in about the twenty seven to twenty eight range out of the thirty teams. And when AD was on the floor, they were one of the very best defenses in the league.

For the entire season, regardless of roster makeup. They had a one to ten point seven defensive rating with AD on the floor, which would have ranked third in the NBA compared to the rest of the team. So basically, eighties on the floor, top tierior league defense, eighties off the floor, absolute garbage defense. That's the level of value that Anthony Davis brings to that end of the floor.

And that is the entire season. As we zoom in, and we will in a little bit on what happened after the deadline, he was at even another level above that. We're going to do a deeper dive into ads defense in general as well, just some of the schematic things that make him so dominant on that end of the floor. But the general theme for today goes back to what I was saying about Luka Doncic when I had him at ten. I don't like theoretical basketball. We play the

games for a reason. We get results. It removes subjectivity from the equation. Anthony Davis's defensive value wins basketball games, end of story, so much so that even Steph Curry, a guy who's way above him on this list and a guy who I think is the greatest offensive weapon of the last decade of NBA basketball, even Steph couldn't solve the Anthony Davis defensive puzzle in that second round

series for the Warriors. AD won that chess match. As a matter of fact, Led by Ad, the Lakers held Steph to a fifty five percent true shooting percentage in that series, which was Steph's lowest mark in a playoff series since the twenty nineteen series against the Houston Rockets.

Now is AD better than Steph? No, But the point is is ad superpower has an impact on basketball games that was able to overcome even what Steph's superpower was within the context of all the other matchups in that series. And that is why, even though he's not the same level of offensive player as the other guys around him on this list, I have him up at number six

in this year's player rankings. We're going to do a big, deep dive into what he accomplished this season, and I think after we really look back and zoom in on what he accomplished, you guys will probably start to see, at least for those of you guys who didn't follow the Lakers very closely this year, you'll start to see in greater detail just how impactful he was on winning this season. So quick season recap. He played in fifty six games this year, which was the most he's played

in since the twenty twenty bubble season. Average twenty six points and thirteen rebounds. Now twenty six points on sixty three percent true shooting. So again, not the same quality offensive player as his peers, no doubt, but still a very damn good offensive player. And especially when we zoom in a little bit on some of the shot making stuff, he still can't make a jump shot to save his life.

So with where he's at offensively, it's not like you're leaving a ton of gap there between his peers, but he's just somewhat below them right, also averaged two blocks in a steal per game. He was actually third in the NBA in stocks that steals plus blocks. He was third in the NBA in stocks per game behind Jaron Jackson. And who do you guys think is number two? Quick trivia? If you guessed Nick Claxton from the Brooklyn Nets, you were correct. As a shot creator, not a great year

as a half court shot creator. He was zero point ninety two points per ISO, which is below average. One point zero six points per post up among the high volume guys. That was middle of the pack. So there's twenty players in the NBA last year who ran at least two hundred post ups and ad finished eleventh on that list and pretty much behind all of his peers at the center position. The one guy who's one of his peers at his position that he beat it out, that he beat out was bam at a bio. Shot

making was the biggest issue. Shot just thirty five percent on jump shots, thirty nine percent when you waited that for threes, so thirty nine percent effective field goal percentage. Just thirty six percent on pull up jump shots, all from the mid range. So every single time you saw Anthony Davis take some sort of dribble, step back or turn around jump shot or something like that out of

the post. Anytime he took a shot like that, it had about a two out of three chance of missing, And so if it felt like that when you were watching the Lakers, you were right in the sense that that was what the percentage landed out at. As a matter of fact, his jumper was a big issue, particularly in spot up situations when he was unguarded. He shot just thirty one percent on jump shots. So it's starting to look more and more like the bubble was a

big outlier for Anthony Davis. He had a to give you an idea, in the bubble, he had a fifty nine percent effective field goal percentage on catch and shoot jump shots, in a forty five percent effective field goal percentage on pull up jumper. So just not the same type of shot maker really at any point of his career outside of the bubble. There was definitely that thirty five percent or thirty nine percent effective fielgal percentage overall

on jump shots. That's low compared to his career, Like he's typically in the low forties and had a lot of years there in New Orleans in particular, where he was in the low forties, so definitely a bit below what his career numbers were. But even as we zoom in on the kind of zoom in on individual stretches of his career, there never was a stretch where he shot as well as he did in the bubble, so I think we can pretty safely assume that that was

an outlier. He shot fifty one percent on floaters this year. That's good, not great. It's it's good compared to guards who are taking floaters over the top of shot blockers and stuff. But for Anthony Davis, with the quality of looks he gets with those little pop shots in the paint, that's actually pretty low and way below where his peers at the position are. As a matter of fact, Nikola

Jokic was almost seventy percent on floaters this year. It goes to show you the difference between those two guys in their touch. Ady was sixty one percent on hooks, which is very good. As matter of fact, I'd say that's great. I mean, Jokic has him beat by about five percent there. But again, Jokic has the best touch in the league. I'd like to see Ad get the

floaters up to about sixty percent as well. I just think that's such an important shot for him to be able to demonstrate that he could score over the top of the defense. He is incredible at the rim though, five point six makes per game in the restricted area, trailing just Yannis at one, Zion at two, and his teammate Lebron James at three, so he's the fourth best rim attacking player in the league. He was seventy six percent in the restricted area on shot attempts, which is

higher than any of those three guys that are above him. So, like, it's one of those things where he has all of the tools to be that top tier offensive player, does a really good job scoring in all of the advantage created situations, right, but when it's time for him to create for himself, that touch over the top, particularly with

his floater and his jump shot is the problem. If he improves that, if he gets his pull up jumper, you know, that mid range pull up up in like where he's consistently making in the low forties and that have in the mid thirties, that would be help a ton and get that floater up to sixty percent. I think if he got to there, all of his individual creation numbers would go up considerably. Not to mention, that would open up things a lot for him to start

attacking the rim even more than he does. Anthony Davis is a deadly roleman, and the Lakers used him a lot as a roleman, especially with all of the guards that they have that could run, pick and roll. Ad shot the ball on the roll two hundred and forty two times this year, leading to three hundred and eleven points. That one point twenty nine points per possession on roleman shots was third out of the eleven players in the league to log at least two hundred rollman possessions, which

you know when you watch the film. It's actually especially impressive when you consider he's not a very good screener. That's definitely a weakness of his compared to his peers. He doesn't set good screens that free up the guard better, which inherently free up him better when he's on his role. It's just he's so damn quick, and he's got such a good handle compared to other bigs, and his touch at the rim is so good that Anthony Davis makes up for that and is still a great role man.

But I'd like to see him get a little bit better as a screener. He is arguably the best vertical spacer in the league. Just a huge target with great hands, and dunks everything. And he's also a pretty good short role passer. Not not quite as good as Bam, definitely not as good as Jokis, but he's a solid short role passer. It's not like he's hurting his team team when teams kind of gather around him when he's catching on the role. It was generally an up and down season.

Started the year really rough. He in the two to ten stretch for the Lakers to start the year, he did not score thirty points a single time. He averaged just twenty three and eleven during that stretch, which was just not good enough. But then he hit the Jets

for a month and was just absolutely unbelievable. If you take out the game that he got hurt against the Nuggets when he hurt his foot, if you take that game out because he left early, and then there was a game where he left early in Cleveland two sick, where he played just a few minutes and then left

he wasn't feeling well. If you take those two games out, there was a twelve game span there over the course of that month where he scored thirty plus and nine of the twelve games he averaged thirty five and fifteen. In that twelve game stretch. The Lakers went eight and four in that span, and again that was before the trade deadline when the reinforcements came. The peak of the run was a road game in Milwaukee where he dropped forty four, going blow for blow with Giannis and Tenna

Kumpo in a win. And then he followed that up two nights later in Washington, dropping fifty five on the Wizards in a win. But then he suffers the foot stress injury against the Nuggets. Huge bummer because like for years, Laker fans were just praying that Ad would be able to get back to the level he was at in the bubble, and he kind of was at that level during that twelve game stretch. Again, thirty five and fifteen is like MVP of the league level production that he

was putting out there before the injury. But then it was like man, here we go again, and he ended up missing twenty games. And as you guys remember, Lebron really carried the team over that stretch, and then Ad comes back and then Lebron gets hurt, probably related to the work at the workload he had to put in at that point in time. But At that point it became Anthony Davis's job to basically do what Lebron did and carry the team, and he did that and then some.

Anthony Davis, after coming back from the foot stress fracture a foot stretch reaction, i should say, missed just three games the entire rest of the season, and all of them were back to backs. When he was forced to miss by the medical staff. He averaged twenty five and thirteen overall in that stretch. There was a sixteen game stretch from February twenty sixth to April second, where he averaged twenty nine and thirteen on fifty nine percent shooting, so not quite the level he was at before the

foot injury offensively, but still really really good. But most importantly, this was the stretch post trade deadline where Anthony Davis went up a level on defense and it completely re established the Lakers as one of the very best defensive teams in the league. Over the course of the final twenty six games of the season, which is the stretch that represents every the game. Every game the Lakers played

after their trade reinforcements actually were in Jersey. In Jerseys, the Lakers were second in the NBA and defensive rating

over that span. They took that like pick and roll identity that they had, where it's like Lebron, James, the Angelo Russell, Austin Reeves and Dennis Schroeder just running a ton of pick and roll with Anthony Davis as the folkrum on the offensive end, and then they added this incredible defensive identity that they really haven't had since the twenty twenty one season, and suddenly they became one of

the better two way teams in the league. They finished the league that stretch of the season, going eighteen to eight and getting all the way back to being in the playoff picture and having a legitimate path in front of them to make a playoff runt and ad. Again, this is not twenty twenty. You know. In twenty twenty,

Lebron was still running the show. I don't think people remember, like especially Lebron fans in particular, because they just insist on saying he's the best in the world all the time. I don't think people realize how big of a drop off there's been since twenty twenty for people who forgot. In the twenty twenty playoffs, Lebron averaged twenty eight points, eleven rebounds, and nine assists on sixty five percent true shooting.

That's unbelievable. Best player in the world production. In the finals, Lebron averaged thirty points, twelve rebounds, and nine assists on sixty seven percent true shooting. That was Lebron's team. He was still the offensive fulkrum. Obviously, Anthony Davis was the defensive folkrum, but Lebron was the best player on that team. This is not the same Lebron. He's gone from being the best player in the world to just a really good number two. He's just another one of the superstars now.

He's not like on a tier by himself atop the league the way he used to be. Ad is more consistently impactful than him. He's the literal structure that the team is built around, both in their pick and roll attack offensively and as the rim protector on defense. This is Anthony Davis's team now, and it continued into the postseason, just until he ran into Nikoliokich. In the Memphis series, he averaged four point three blocks per game, completely dominated

the series defensively. In the Lakers one. In the Golden State Series, he completely shut down the Warriors motion offense really in the first game. They ran it here and there throughout the series, but it never was effect effective really just by patrolling the paint. Every adjustment Steve Kerr made over the rest of the series was designed to try to pull Anthony Davis away from the paint, and

none of it worked. As we said before, this was STEP's most inefficient series since the twenty nineteen series against the Houston Rockets. They held both Klay Thompson and Jordan Pool below one point per shot attempt, so they both had more field goal attempts than points in the series. Next thing you know, the two to ten Lakers all is dead and the season is over. Lakers were in

the Conference finals. Now, before we talk about what happened in the Conference finals, because I want to stay on the positive with ad for just a little bit longer, let's talk about why Anthony Davis is the best defensive player in the world. Because, if you remember, I talked about how bam Adebio is probably the most versatile defender.

There are a couple of specific defensive things that bam is better at that I think make him a little more versatile and makes him such a great fit with the Miami Heat, But in terms of the ultimate top tier ceiling defensively, I don't think anybody can reach Anthony Davis's level, even Giannis, who I thought was the best defensive player in the world during that stretch when Anthony Davis was hurt all of the time. And it really hinges on three core skills that make Anthony Davis the

best drop coverage big in the world. Number One, he's excellent at getting up to the level of the screen, but also getting back to the rim after his guard recovers. Now, remember in the NBA right now, all of these guards are insane pull up jumpshooters. Right so you can no longer run a traditional drop coverage where you back all the way back to the rim and let the guy just kind of you because he's not going to drive into you. He's gonna rise up and take a jump shot.

So a lot of people refer to this as the yo yo. It's the job of the big to get up to the level of the screen to dissuade the pull up jump shot, recover back to the paint, up to the level of the screen, recover back to the paint. And the reason why they call it a yo yo is now in the NBA, especially for fast paced teams. They might run three pick and rolls on the same possession. Shut down a pick and roll, they're just resetting and

running another one. They might swing it to the perimeter and have the big run up and set a quick screen, and now he's defending a different player in pick and roll. And so that's why they refer to as a As a yo yo, you have to get up and back and up and back, and it requires a great deal of mobility. And with AD's combination of mobility and just outrageous length, he's one of the best in the world at getting up and back in that yo yo to dissuade the pull up shot and to get back to

the rim. Second when he's up at the level of the screen, he's got super active hands. Now, the game that I think best describes this skill as Game three of Warriors series this year. So if you guys, remember they run a lot of pick and roll in game two, the Lakers bring a pretty poor defensive effort. They get

killed in game three. If you watch that game, look at how many times Anthony Davis got deflections up at the screen because when AD's up, Steph's trying to get rid of it to the roll man or if they're tagging the roller to the weak side right, and Anthony Davis is looking and tracking Steph as he's getting ready to make that pass, and he's getting deflections, which is leading to turnovers and getting the Lakers out the other way.

The Lakers had a dominant game in Game three of that series, and most of the damage was done by Anthony Davis and his active hands up at the level of the screen. Again, if you're up there and you don't have active hands, that's actually the worst place you can be because if the pass gets through, it's a four on three now and you're at the top of the key and you're not in a position where you can help defensively. But if you have active hands and you dissuade the pass, hell, if you get him to

pick up his dribble, then you get to recover. But if you dissuade the pass, or if you deflect it in some way, shape or form, that's when it's a defensive playmaking opportunity to go the opposite end and get out in transition, which was such an important thing for the Lakers in particular because of some of their half court offense struggles. But those are the first two things.

Getting to the level of the screen, super active fans at the level, and then lastly, when he's at the rim, there's nobody in the league that is better at blocking and changing shots. So when you put those three traits together, it makes Anthony Davis the best drop coverage big in the league, one of the few bigs that can consistently run drop coverage in the NBA playoffs without getting killed. Again, drop coverage used to be suicide against Steph Curry. Ask

the Boston Celtics. That's what cost them the NBA Finals. But with the Lakers, it worked. And that's the advantage

of having Anthony Davis on your roster. Again, when we're talking about why he's with the offensive limitations that he has to be up at number six in the league, you have to be truly transcend it defensively, and Anthony Davis made a coverage that was there used to be a death sentence against Steph Curry into something that literally caused him to have his most inefficient series since the twenty nineteen playoffs. And so that's the advantage of Anthony Davis.

Nothing is quite as difficult in the NBA as trying to run pick and roll at Steph Curry. As a matter of factor, excuse me at Anthony Davis. And you know what's funny is he shut down John Morant two. John Moran averaged one point zero four points per possession in pick and roll in the regular season ad and the Lakers held him to zero point eighty seven points

per possession in pick and roll. So Anthony Davis, his ultimate superpower is shutting down pick and roll in the NBA, and it is the foundation to what was a dominant Laker defense that made it all the way to the conference finals. But and again before we move on, like I said before, not quite as good on switches as someone like for instance, but he's still pretty good in

those situations. Also not quite as good in box out situations as some of the bigger, stronger players at his positions at his position, but he's not a perfect player. But I think overall, when you factor all of the elements of defense in, I think that he is the

best defender in the league. I was super disappointed in Anthony Davis in the Denver series, though not because he lost to Yoki Jokic is the best player in the world, and sometimes what happens in basketball is you run into a guy who's better than you and you just get to lose. And I'm not trying to overthink that specific concept, but I didn't think Ad fought as hard as he was capable of fighting. It was kind of, you know,

especially visibly. Sometimes it looked as though Jokic kind of sapped Ad of his confidence and his like energy, and he looked lifeless at times. The Nuggets absolutely shredded the Lakers defense. I don't think people realize just how ineffectual AD was. Ad in particular, was ineffectual defensively in that series. The Lakers had a one to sixteen defensive right in that series against the Nuggets. That was by far the worst out of the three other opponents that Denver faced.

With Ad on the floor in the Nuggets series, the Nuggets, the Nuggets scored one hundred and twenty five points per one hundred possessions. He couldn't stop jokicch in the post. He couldn't stop Jokic in face up situations or ISOs, including that pivotal basket in Game four, that ended up being the game winner. He couldn't slow down the two man game. Jokic just absolutely torched him, beat him in transition, just running up and down the floor like he always

does every time the two of him play. It was honestly a little embarrassing for Anthony Davis. And it wasn't just Denver's offense and an unguardability factor, because we saw other teams in the playoffs do a better job. And that's where I look at the lack of fight and the lethar g and that, like it just is like it's one of those things where like you're on the ground, what are you gonna do. You're gonna lay there and let the dude keep kicking you or are you gonna

get up and try to fight? You know what I mean? And I just wished that Ad was was a little bit more willing to fight in that specific situation. The one thing I want to do to cut him some slack, though, is AD had been playing at a playoff level of intensity since February because of the predicament. The front office put them in, Hey, here's your reinforcements. There's some good

basketball players. Go Oh, by the way, you're the thirteen seed, like, and there's thirty games left, so let's see what you got. That was the situation he was put in, and so as a result, he was on the Jets like NonStop from February all the way to March, all the way to April, all the way to May. And usually it's not like that, you know, Yo Kitchen, the Nuggets they got to chill the last third of the season and

then hit the Jets for two months. Ad had to hit the Jets for four months, and I do think that that played a role in the lack of energy that Ad had to fight against Jokic harder than he did. The one thing that was just kind of a bummer, though, is like it just wasn't a good look to see Game four and see Lebron like literally leaving his heart and soul out on the floor trying to win the game, and Ad is just kind of coasting through until the last He kind of turned it on in the fourth

quarter a little bit, but that was it. So like, I was definitely a little disappointed that he didn't put up more of a fight against Jokic, even accounting for the fatigue. So in summary, Ady is a super flawed offensive player, not a good jump shooter, but he is still a good volume scorer. It was very efficient. Biggest area of improvement there is he needs to work on making shots over the top of the defense. He's one

of the best role men in the league. Excellent finishing at the rim, especially above the rim as a vertical spacer, but he's got great touch as well. He's also a good passer in short role situations. Tends to be very

up and down offensively. That was kind of the theme of this postseason was like the one night AD would have thirty and one night AD would have fourteen the one thing I didn't I thought that was fair criticism for the record, because inconsistent inconsistency offensively certainly hurts the basketball team. But there was important context there. Every conversation surrounding AD's inconsistency needed to be framed around the idea that he was consistently great defensively, and so, yeah, can

you be frustrated that he's not more consistent offensively? Sure? Is it an area that he needs to work on improving? Yeah, mainly conditioning. He needs to condition himself to the point where he can devote those resources to the defensive end of the floor while not getting cooked in transition, while also having the legs to get up and make shots

on the offensive end of the floor. But when we're having those discussions, let's make sure we remember and frame it around the idea that he was the very best defensive player in the world that was completely anchoring that Laker defense in the main reason why they were winning games. And that fact ad being the best defensive player in the world, to me is what puts him up as

high as he is on this list. In order to really join conversations for best in the world, I think he needs to round out his offensive skill set, become a better shot maker over the top, improve his conditioning so that he doesn't run into problems with inconsistency and in transition. And then, last, but not least, take take the Jokic thing as an opportunity to motivate yourself, Like that's the way that I would look at that, Like

Jokic kicked your ass. But the beautiful thing about basketball, my favorite thing about basketball is you live to fight another day. You know, one day it stops, Yeah, like Lebron one day won't be able to go anymore. But that's what's amazing about basketball. You have the ability to completely change the perception of yourself because you go back

and play the next day. Lebron James the most upsetting and disappointing playoff of failure in the of the probably you know, in terms of guys that are in the top ten, it's one of the worst ever. Is twenty eleven Finals performance against the Dallas Mavericks. Went out the next year in Game six against Boston, has that big night, gets the trophy. All's forgiven at that point and then all of a sudden, you know, you look back now in twenty eleven, almost feels weird to talk about because

it's like not even the same player. And that's the way that I look at it. You got your ass kicked by Nicole jokicch but you have a leg up on him on the defensive end of the floor. Make some improvements on the defensive end of the floor or on the offensive end of the floor. Excuse me. You've got a good roster, You've got the ability to make

a move at the deadline to improve. There's a good chance that you're gonna have another opportunity in earlier late May and the second or third round of the Western Conference playoffs to get another crack at jokicen the Nuggets. You're gonna get another chance, So take this summer as an opportunity to shore those things up and give yourself a better chance to win that fight. But right now, best defensive player in the world and is still a very very good offensive player. I have ad as the

sixth best basketball player in the world. All right, guys, that is all I have for today. We're gonna take the rest of the weekend off and we will be back on Monday with number five.