Anthony Davis has been every bit as good as advertised so far for the Los Angeles Lakers to begin the 2019-20 NBA season.
It’s helped them burst out of the gate to a great start despite having their 2019 NBA training camp cut short as well as numerous injuries to role players and Davis himself.
Davis is proving each game why he’s one of the league’s elite players, averaging 26.3 points, 10.4 rebounds, 3.3 assists, and 2.9 blocks a game. All of this could lead to him winning some serious individual hardware at the end of the season. As it stands, he’s firmly in the race for 2019-20 NBA Defensive Player of the Year and sustained play could even put him in the 2019-20 NBA Most Valuable Player award race.
However, none of that matters at the moment for Davis as his sole goal is to win a championship with the Lakers and will simply accept the individual accolades if they come, according to Brian Windhorst of ESPN:
“I’m trying to win much more than an MVP, man,” Davis said, playing down the notion. “It’s early in the season, obviously; if the MVP comes, it comes. If the Defensive Player of the Year comes, it comes. But the entire team’s main goal is to win a championship, and we’re trying to just stay in the moment right now.”
This seems to be a prevailing theme around the Lakers that the team’s goal is to win a championship and that personal achievements don’t matter quite as much. With that, it seems head coach Frank Vogel has implemented a system that players are really buying into early on.
While Davis’ name will surely be in the discussion for all of the major awards at the end of the season, it genuinely seems like it wouldn’t matter as much if the Lakers don’t win the 2020 NBA Finals. This is the exact mindset that Lakers fans, staff, and other players love to see in an All-Star player as it shows everyone is focused on the same goal.
