Can Anthony Davis Shed the Injury Prone Label This Season?
Anthony Davis is a once in a generation like talent. The combination of guard skillsets and his 7 feet, 6 inches wingspan has made him into a multi-faceted superstar. However, he has been plagued with a litany of injuries throughout his career.
The sky is the limit when Anthony Davis is healthy, but the problem remains, when will that happen? Over the course of his NBA career, Davis has 27 injuries.
During the summer, Hall of Fame big man Kevin Garnett was on the Dan Patrick show and called on Davis to condition better to lessen the likelihood of injuries.
“He has to take another level of improving his body…He has to go to another level with his body and training. Whatever he’s been doing in the last 10 years is not working. He should not be out of shape during the regular season. I don’t understand that one.”
Like Garnett, Laker fans alike have been fed up with Davis inability to stay healthy. Although he has avoided serious injury over his career, he tends to have a lot of nagging injuries that end up sidelining him and limit his optimal ability to perform. Had Davis not injured his groin during Game 4 of the Lakers-Suns first round in the playoffs, we could be talking about the back-to-back champion Lakers right now.
Well, it definitely seems like the Brow has taken his strength and conditioning workouts more seriously this summer. On the Spectrum SportsNet ‘Lakeshow’ podcast, head coach Frank Vogel praised how Anthony Davis looked upon seeing Davis for the first time in awhile.
"He put a lot of work this offseason into his body, a lot of work. And we had a moment, maybe two weeks ago, where he had been training at home, and we had a conversation: 'these are some of the concerns we have with our team, we think we're good here, we think we're good there,' and then he comes in for a workout, and it was the first time we had kind of seen him for a while, and his body looked imposing. And we all just looked at each other like, 'We're gonna be really good this year.''
This is music to Lakers' fans ears. It doesn’t take an expert to figure out that the Lakers success largely hinges on how healthy AD is. If what Vogel says is true, and Davis manages to stay healthy this summer, it will really be difficult for any other team to stop the Lakers from winning No. 18.
