Anthony Davis is An Act of God

Anthony Davis is an elephant described by blind men. His apocalyptic shot blocking ability and graceful footwork recall a neo-Hakeem Olajuwon. His lanky frame and shooting range can resemble a stretched-out Kevin Durant or an athletic Dirk Nowitzki. Some note his unflappable two-way excellence and maturity, and cast Davis as the second coming of Tim Duncan. The problem is, no comparison accurately encapsulates the type of player Anthony Davis is. He has no precedent. We do not have the tools to describe him.

If you want to succinctly measure how Davis plays, you will need to invent a new axis of measurement. He leads the league in scoring and is on pace for the best PER of all time, but numbers only show that Davis is great, not that he is an alley-oop threat even while double teamed or that he covers so much ground that opponents literally can't run pick-and-rolls on him. Basketball Reference doesn't have a "Well-Executed Schemes Blown up by Athleticism" column. You can do everything right to fool Davis, make a nifty pocket pass, earn position for a good shot, only to find him swooping over from the weakside to stuff it. He's a basketball deus ex machina.

And yet, Davis plays with a quietness that blurs out his influence. Watching him play is like watching an avalanche from far away. In Lee Jenkins' Davis profile for Sports Illustrated, his cousin recalls seeing him play live and being shocked that he already had 25 points. He simply never noticed them. Davis pops up in unexpected places to scramble the neurons of the game so often that these little moments of genius blend together. In his best games, opponents are like frogs in hot water, not quite grasping that Davis is slowly boiling them until it's too late. That he is dominant without seeming to fully assert himself hints at a frightening possibility: Davis is still more raw material than finished product. What happens when he finally does assert himself?

By now, you know the creation myth, how he went to bed one night a scrawny, bespectacled point guard and awoke a foot taller. He's improved so fast, the next two frames of his growth progress chart might show Davis at 8'3" with an extra set of arms. DeMarcus Cousins has been cast as his foil, but they're hardly playing the same sport. Cousins is all burly forcefulness, the epitome of a post-up player, while Davis defies the language of positionality. He was an All-Star level player for two years while essentially playing as a rover, getting by on athleticism and instincts. Now that he's learning the structure and rhythm of the NBA, Davis is turning the corner towards superstardom.

For all his cloudy unorthodoxy, positional fluidity, and low usage, Anthony Davis has been the best player in the NBA this season. There are plenty of caveats and conditionalities to consider—namely that the season is only a quarter of the way done—but Davis has played better than anyone else despite actively still figuring out his game. The Pelicans aren't good and it doesn't quite matter. It's not Davis's fault. He is still tottering around on training wheels and yet, nobody can hang with him. The best player in the NBA at any given time has never had as much to still figure out as Davis does.

His teams will start winning and it's a certainty that he will get better. To what degree he improves is an unknown and terrifying measure. Nobody knows what his ceiling is because no player has ever reached it before. For now, while he is still somewhat nascent and his team is scuffling around the lower-middle of the Western Conference, Anthony Davis is remarkably free from pressure. He is 21-years-old and nowhere near the household name LeBron or Kevin Durant are. Someday, the NBA will be his league, but right now, it's his playground.