I AM LEAVING: LA Laker star Anthony Davis accept a deal of $218 million to leave
Throughout the opening years of his time in Los Angeles, Lakers fans pushed for the team to play Anthony Davis at center. Despite winning a title with Davis alongside a center, so much of the discussion around the team surrounded opening up the floor with AD as the lone big.
Be careful what you wish for, I guess.
After multiple seasons of AD at center, a move largely forced into reality after the Russell Westbrook trade, the pleas now are to go back to two-big lineups. And those aren’t just coming from fans, but AD himself.
Dave McMenamin of ESPN wrote in a piece on Thursday about AD and his desire to play alongside a big man.
One thing Davis has made clear to the Lakers, sources told ESPN, is his preference to play alongside another big more often. The Lakers are thin in the middle going into the season with Christian Wood expected to be out for at least eight weeks following left knee surgery, leaving Jaxson Hayes and two-way player Colin Castleton as the only other healthy centers on the roster.
While the opinions of fans may have swayed, AD’s has not. Even as fans were clamoring for the Lakers to go small during Russell Westbrook’s first year in Los Angeles, Davis spoke of how much easier the game is for him when playing alongside a big man.
The current problem the Lakers have is the roster is not in a place where playing two centers is viable. With Christian Wood’s injury, the team has only two centers on the roster in AD and Jaxson Hayes. That is not exactly a situation conducive to playing the two of them together for any significant amount of time.
When Wood returns, that could perhaps change things, but both Wood and Hayes have notable limitations that saw them moving in and out of the rotation last season.
Simply put, there isn’t a good solution to the problem right now for the Lakers. A mid-season trade could change that, but if the Lakers are making a move, it’s unlikely the center position will be at the top of their minds.
The other route is finding a center on the free agent market. However, if someone is a free agent in September, would they be a better solution than Wood or Hayes? The argument for that would be they’d be available, unlike Hayes, but that would require a trade and the Lakers haven’t even been rumored to be interested in doing that yet.