Why Anthony Davis Is the Best Center in the League

Anthony Marshon Davis Jr. was born March 11, 1993 in Chicago, Illinois. He was a top high school prospect in the 2010 class and chose to commit to the University of Kentucky for college. In his first and only year in at Kentucky, he won the 2012 National Championship with 2nd overall pick Michael Kidd-Gilchrist.

Following an impressive year at Kentucky, he got selected to the New Orleans Hornets (now Pelicans) who were coming off a disastrous year. Following a great rookie year, but not wining the award-which went to Trail Blazers point guard Damian Lillard, Davis was established as a solid center.

His tenure with the Pelicans was honestly brutal, only making the playoffs two out of six years with Davis. Plus, their front office didn't do much, only attracting two all stars in Jrue Holiday and DeMarcus Cousins. So really, Davis didn't have much help to win many games, probably the fact Holiday only plays half the season due to being injury prone, and Cousins tore his Achilles and walked in free agency.

Davis is a great player as in New Orleans, was a 6x All Star, 3x All NBA First Team, 1x All Defensive First Team, 2x All Defensive First Team, and 3x NBA Blocks Leader. From these accolades, you can already tell he is a great player, and is a generational talent it seems. Now, lets get into why he is the best center in the league though.

In his seven years in the league, Davis has a career stat line of 23.7 points, 10.5 rebounds, and 2.1 assists per game.Compared to his 2012 draft class, he ranks first in points per game, second in rebounds, and twelfth in assists per game. As you can probably tell, Davis isn't the greatest passer, but can shoot and rebound the ball at high levels.

I ran a player comparison of the top centers in the league, these being Joel Embiid, Nikola Jokic, Karl-Anthony Towns, Rudy Gobert, and Davis through their whole careers. From these top centers in the league, Davis ranks second in points per game, third in rebounds, and fourth in assists.These don't sound like the greatest of numbers but Davis is also 1st in least amount of fouls with 2.4 per game. Davis also ranks first in blocks from this group, with an impressive 2.4 blocks per game.

Now if we look into the advanced statistics, Davis is first in PER with 27.4. This is 2.4 more than second who is Karl-Anthony Towns. What really surprised me was Davis' usage rate, and it wasn't the highest out of the people we discussed. Davis has a career 28.3% USG, but Joel Embiid has a 33.8%. That's almost 5.5% higher then Davis for an injury prone big man.

Davis is the perfect big man for today's league, as he can score in the paint, and shoot the 3 point ball decently at 31.4% He is also a workhorse, as he took the heavy load in trying to help the Pelicans win games.

He is also a great rim protector for a center, averaging 2.4 blocks like I said earlier. Davis can also lock down his opponent in the paint, and can go on the perimeter to guard stretch fives.

Lastly, Davis' pick and roll game is one of the best. Even though he didn't have a great guard in Jrue Holiday, he still caught lobs from him and Elfrid Payton. This is perfect for a center who can really do everything on the floor!

Even though Davis got traded to the Lakers after becoming frustrated with losing many games with no other stars, he still is a good locker room guy. He can teach Kyle Kuzma how to be a better big man, will show he really is a good center in the league.

Plus, Davis will become more mature due to the fact that he is now teammates with one of the greatest players of all time, Lebron James. James is super humble and will get Davis is learn his ways in being a better player and person. With better morale, he can finally start winning games in today's league..

Overall, as we are saying Anthony Davis is the best Center in the game, we will rate him out of ten out of certain categories.

• Shooting- 7/10
• Dribbling- 6/10
• Rebounding- 9/10
• Defense- 9/10
• Passing- 6/10

In total Davis has a score of 37/50, which is a VERY good score for a Center. As Centers are not the greatest dribblers or play makers, that is why he is a 6/10 in those categories.Rebounding is pretty self-explanatory, as is defense from the statistics part of the post. Shooting could have been around 8 but as his 3 point percentage is reasonably low, it sunk it down to a 7.

Overall, this is why Anthony Davis is the best Center in the NBA right now. Everything about him gives me the correct vibe that he is better than Joel Embiid health wise. Karl-Anthony Towns defensively, Rudy Gobert shooting, and Nikola Jokic off experience.

Thank you for reading my article on why Anthony is the best Center in the league, comment below if I should do another one of these for another person in the league!