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Anthony Davis of the LA Lakers is one of the best defensive players in the NBA, being named the All-Defensive First Team last season. However, Davis feels underappreciated defensively and dropped a reaction to what critics say about it.
On the Lakers Media Day on Monday, Davis faced reporters ahead of the team's training camp and preparations for the upcoming season. He was asked about being an underrated defender by his critics and which part of his game doesn't get a lot of love.
"All of it. Every part," Davis said.
Anthony Davis has been a defensive anchor for the LA Lakers although numbers don't show how important he's with the team's overall defensive rating. Davis' new coach JJ Redick used it as an excuse to not vote him as an All-Defensive Team player.
"There's a big difference in being a top-10 defender and making an All-Defense team," Redick said.
"There's a distinction between the two. Anthony Davis is one of the two or three best defensive players in the NBA. ... You certainly have to factor in the stats, the advanced stats and of course the team performance on defense. In both years, I weighed heavily on how the team performed defensively," Redick said.
Despite being candid about his reasoning on why Anthony Davis was snubbed from his ballot, JJ Redick told Zach Lowe on his "The Lowe Post" podcast that Davis didn't even know and didn't care when he told him about the snub during their dinner this offseason.
"Yeah, he had no idea what I was talking about. He's like, 'I didn't' even know that.' ... Spent some time with him, went to a lovely dinner in Santa Monica a few weeks back.
"We're going to empower him as much as he wants to be empowered. If he wants to be First Team All-NBA and wants to be in the MVP conversation all year long, we're going to empower him to do that," Redick said.
Davis enters the season healthy and coming off an Olympic gold medal win with Team USA in the 2024 Paris Olympics.
What does JJ Redick want Anthony Davis this upcoming season?
LA Lakers coach JJ Redick has told Anthony Davis what he wants to see from him this upcoming season. Davis told reporters on Monday as part of Media Day and shared what Redick encouraged him to do more in his 13th year in the league.
"He has been on me all summer about shooting 3s. Even in the Olympics when I would make a 3, he would text me and say that's what I want to see and things like that. But for him, it's definitely gonna be shooting more 3s. For me, I just try to work on everything.
"There's northing in my game that I can't polish or touch up, so when I’m working out, I just try to hit every facet of my game," Davis said. [H/T Lakes News]
Davis shot 27.1% from beyond the arc last season and hasn't been good from threes since the 2019-20 season. His percentages in the last three seasons were 26.0%, 18.6% and 25.7%.
