Lakers News: Defensive Attention On Anthony Davis Helping LeBron James

Matthew Valento
3 Min Read
Oct 26, 2024; Los Angeles, California, USA; Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (23) passes to Los Angeles Lakers forward Anthony Davis (3) during the first half at Crypto.com Arena. Mandatory Credit: Jonathan Hui-Imagn Images

The LeBron James and Anthony Davis has been among the best in the league for the Los Angeles Lakers since their first season together when they cashed in on a championship. However, L.A. is always looking for more titles and that presented a struggle the past few seasons.

Despite having James and Davis playing at All-NBA levels, the roster construction and coaching has often caused the Lakers to fall short since that 2020 championship.

But things are looking up at the Lakers are off to their first 3-0 start since 2010 behind JJ Redick’s coaching and stellar play from their two stars. Particularly with Davis, he is finally embracing being the No. 1 option for the purple and gold and is off to great start to this season with three straight 30-point games.

That has taken pressure off James to go out and carry the team every night as he spoke to how much Davis’ dominance has benefitted him.

“In every way, shape and facet. He commands so much attention,” James said. “Defensively, he continues to dominate defensive rebounds at a high level. When we get to our switching groups, he can switch out on the perimeter and make it tough on them. Offensively, we can find him on mismatches. A lot of teams in our league like to switch guards onto bigs. We have one guy you can’t really switch a guard onto. That creates mismatches. We encourage, coaches encourage him, to shoot that three ball. Probably the biggest shot of the night is him making that three tonight. That made it easy on me. All I got to do is get it on time and on target.”

When James and Anthony united back in 2019, they immediately hit it off and formed a tremendous connection on the floor. It is great to see a star who is considered one of the greatest of all time showing love to his co-star.

While it has not been perfect, the Chicago native is already causing issues for opposing teams as they look to contain him. But when the focus is on Davis, it allows for James and others to contribute, which is why the Lakers have been so hard to stop.

‘Inside The NBA’ includes LeBron James & Anthony Davis in top players list

Since the previous seasons have not ended well for the Lakers, there has been conversations surrounding truly how good of a duo LeBron James and Anthony Davis are. However, ‘Inside the NBA’ ranked them fairly high in their top players list going into the 2024-25 season.

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Matthew Valento graduated from Boise State University with a major in integrated media and strategic communications and a minor in journalism. He grew up in Santa Clarita, California and played basketball at Saugus High School. Along with writing for LakersNation.com, Matthew also hosts a basketball podcast called, "The Basketball Maestros." Contact: MattV@MediumLargeLA.com Twitter: @matthewvalento Instagram: matthew.valento