Davis top 3 player..nuff said
Davis is obviously a great player. However, how many top 5 players have only made the playoffs twice in their first 6 seasons and only got out of the first round once in that time frame? With all of the star treatment a top 5 player receives by the referees, this seems like an almost impossible feat.
You keep banging this drum, and it doesn't make a lot of sense. Durant didn't win a playoff series til his 4th year, and not until he had another all star playing alongside him. AD has had no such luxury.
He's generally been on garbage teams with questionable guard play, and then was saddled with a ball hog center who thinks he's a 3 pt shooter. He started to get some continuity and decent guard play for the first time in his career, and his team rolls over Portland, and gave GSW a lot better fight than Lebron did.
AD is the most valuable commodity in the NBA. No one matches up against him, and he can match up against any other big man. The one and only legitimate case against him is he's only averaged 68 games/season, but then he's played 75 in each of the last 2, so it's getting harder to even make that case.
Trading any individual player for AD is a no-brainer. I love JT and hope we can keep him forever, but not trading him straight up for AD is absurd. And a hypothetical, because we're at least a couple years from AD being available anyway.
The 2014-15 season was the first time he made the playoffs, and New Orleans was a tie breaker away from missing the playoffs altogether. Last season was the second time Davis made the playoffs, and they were only two games from missing the playoffs again. Can you imagine LeBron or Durant having a stretch of 6 years like this on any team?
I don't watch him enough to know the answer, but something doesn't add up. LeBron went to his first finals on a team that would have made Davis' team last season look like an all star team. When your a top 5 player, making the playoffs every year should be the bare minimum as far as team success. That's not asking much, when half the league makes the playoffs.
As someone pointed out above, good thing Ainge didn't look at Garnett that way. You play for a garbage organization, you're not going anywhere, especially in a western conference that was dominated by SAS and GSW over AD's entire career.
2014-15 was AD's 3rd season. Guess which was Lebron's first playoff season? His 3rd season.
Now you're moving the goalposts that his team wasn't impressive enough in actually making the playoffs? AD is a guaranteed 1st ballot HOFer if he stays relatively healthy. He lead the NBA in shot blocks, again. He's the only big man in the game that's perennial 1st team all-nba. He's the league's best post player, best post defender, and one of the best rebounders.
Not only would most of us do that deal, Ainge would do it at lightspeed, although admittedly, the odds of such a deal are tiny.
I think JT is going to be a huge star and Larkin isn't overstating his potential, but the fact remains, AD is already at the level we hope JT gets to.