Lastly: The real lesson from Milwaukee and Toronto this year? Have a top-five player.
Yeah.
The ways these playoffs have gone is a reminder that the overarching goal for any franchise that is serious about being "relevant" (i.e. being in the conversation for the title) and playing deep into May on an annual basis is to obtain and retain one of the handful of players that "matter" in the league.
Who is on that list? Debatable, and the list changes all the time. But it probably is something like:
Curry, Harden, Giannis, Dame, Embiid, Jokic, Kawhi, LeBron.
Anthony Davis might belong on that list. Paul George has an argument for being on it. Perhaps Karl Towns will be on that list soon.
Kyrie as recently as a year or so ago seemed like he belonged on the list, but this season casts serious doubt on that idea, in my mind.
LeBron, Durant, and Davis should be at the highest tier list. And then Curry, Harden, Giannis, Leonard and so forth.
Davis belongs no where near the highest tier. He hasn't done a darn thing that would put him in that category of player.
You don't think that is conductive based on his team?
His best teammates have been Holiday, Cousins, and Rondo. And Cousins in the playoffs was short lived..
In 13 games he averages 30.5 PPG, 1.8 APG, 2.5 BPG, 1.8 SPG, and 12.7 RPG...
How is that not superb numbers? I guess we will have to wait and see what happens when you actually put a great team around him.
No I don't. You can't have that many seasons in the league and have that little team success and be one of those special players. In his 7 seasons in the league the Pelicans have made the playoffs just twice winning 45 and 48 games those 2 seasons but never winning more than 34 games in any other season. The 15-16 Pelicans had Davis along with Eric Gordon, Tyreke Evans, Jrue Holiday, Ryan Anderson, Omer Asik and had at various points Kendrick Perkins, Alexis Ajinca, Alzono Gee, Toney Douglas, Ish Smith, Dante Cunningham, Tim Frazier, James Ennis, and Norris Cole. That team won 30 games despite some solid starting talent and a lot of depth. Two seasons before that they had a very similar talent level and won 34 games (in between was the 45 win, 1st round exit). In other words, they came apart at the seams. And let's be clear, you give someone like Lebron James that level of talent for 3 years in a row and they are a deep playoff team without question, even early on in Lebron's career.
Even someone like Garnett who had significant playoff failures in Minnesota was leading a 40+ win team year in and year out, his talent level was no where near what Davis has had in New Orleans. Yes the Pelicans have been mismanaged making a lot of short sighted moves, but they've still put together enough talent that they should have been consistently a playoff team if Davis is really that good. Davis just isn't on that level, I don't think given the lack of winning. I'd love to have him in Boston as he would make Boston a lot better, but I have real and legitimate concerns that Davis just isn't a true franchise talent and give us what we really want. Still have to take the risk, especially if it means keeping Kyrie, but also still have to be cautious about what Davis actually is (and that is of course when he is actually on the court as he has a nasty habit of missing a lot of games - which also might lead to some of that lack of success).