Anthony Davis gives his straightforward opinions on the Los Angeles Lakers’ championship aspirations amid an underwhelming start.
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After a failure of a campaign last year, the Los Angeles Lakers front office managed to surround LeBron James and Anthony Davis with an incredible supporting cast this season. In a rather busy offseason, the management was successful in acquiring superstars like Russell Westbrook, Carmelo Anthony, Dwight Howard, DeAndre Jordan, Rajon Rondo, Trevor Ariza, Kendrick Nunn, among many others.
Much to their surprise, the Lakers have had a disappointing and unsatisfactory start to this campaign. After losing all of their preseason games, the 2020 NBA champs are now placed 7th in the West with a subpar 7-6 record.
Over the past few weeks, the team sustained some huge embarrassing defeats – blowing 26-point and 19-point leads in 2 different contests against the OKC, a 105-90 loss to the Blazers. And more recently, on Friday night, LAL was handed a 24-point blowout by the Timberwolves.
“We have to be better to win a championship”: Anthony Davis
Playing yet another game without the likes of LeBron James, Frank Vogel’s boys looked like a lottery team yesterday. The Lakers starting five had an awful combined +/- of -103, and also committed 19 turnovers as a unit. Behind KAT’s 29-point performance, Minnesota defeated LAL 107-83.
During his postgame conference, AD gave his honest takes on the team’s championship aspirations based on their current form. “The Brow” was pretty straightforward with his comments and said:
”We’re not going to win a championship the way we’re playing. We have to be better. … We’ve got to decide who we want to be. A championship team? That’s not us right now.”
Anthony Davis: “We’re not gonna win a championship with the way we’re playing. We have to be better.”
— Jovan Buha (@jovanbuha) November 13, 2021
Over the past few, the third quarter slump has really played a huge factor in their fall in standings. And yesterday night too, the team was outscored 40-12 in the period after halftime. When asked about the same issue, the big man said:
“That’s not just this third quarter, it’s every third quarter we’ve played this season,” Davis said. “We come out slow, lackadaisical offensively and defensively. We got to get it together. Why? I can’t tell you. But we got to do a better job.”
AD on the third: “We sucked.”
AD said that’s been a trend all season — struggling in the third quarter — and he’s not sure why.
— Jovan Buha (@jovanbuha) November 13, 2021
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LeBron James and co. must really find their winning ways before stumbling down the standings furthermore.