Great article on AD.

quote:

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Every few years the NBA presents a new prodigy, supernaturally gifted and relentlessly driven. Ant—as he is called, sans irony, like a bouncer named ­Tiny—is listed at 6'?10", 220 pounds (“245 now,” he interjects), with a wingspan longer than Yao Ming stands and a gait that can cover the floor in a dozen cartoonish strides. He is the invention of a God who already built Kevin Durant and decided to get more creative. . Teammates compare Davis to a Gumby doll, a pogo stick and a variety of other outlandish toys, all elastic or spring-loaded. “I can throw the ball off the top of the backboard,” says point guard Jrue Holiday. “He’ll catch it.” The league has always attracted its share of acrobats, contortionists and high risers but never a postmodern giant quite like Davis, dribbling between his legs, elevating off one foot, sinking fadeaways and swatting them with equal assurance.

His game is a blend of art and economy. With LeBron James still ­acclimating in Cleveland and Durant rehabbing in Oklahoma City, Davis was the best player in the NBA through the first month of the season. At week’s end he ranked in the top 10 in points, rebounds, steals, blocks and field goal percentage. His Player Efficiency Rating was 33.3, according to basketball-reference.com, on pace for the highest ever. “He doesn’t take a bad shot,” says Pelicans coach Monty Williams, because for Davis, a leaner in traffic constitutes a clean look. Davis is doing all this, mind you, without anything resembling a go-to move. “He’s not like Kobe or Carmelo, where you put together a [defensive] plan for him and say, ‘If he gets the ball in this area, it’s a bucket,’?” explains Kings center Ryan Hollins. “He doesn’t hurt you in one place. He hurts you everywhere.”

Davis is 21, a fact printed right there in the program but still met with incredulity around the NBA. “You’ve got to be s------- me,” says a Brow-beaten forward, recently pureed by Davis’s incessant spin moves and back cuts. “I want to check the birth certificate.”

...In other ways, though, Davis is 21 going on Tim Duncan. After piggybacking Team USA to the gold medal at the FIBA World Cup last summer in Spain, he returned to the Pelicans’ facility within 48 hours. He conducts his individual workouts before practice so teammates see him when they enter the gym. He interrupts timeouts with unfiltered announcements such as, “Can you believe this is what I wanted to do all my life and now I’m actually doing it?” Some look at him sideways, but not Williams, who played for San Antonio in the late 1990s when Duncan used to whisper, “Dude, we get paid to do this.”

...The Pelicans were facing the Kings again, but this time Davis did not have 25 in the fourth. He finished with 14 on 4-of-12 shooting in a dispiriting loss...

Eventually Davis emerged from the locker room and strode briskly down the hallway in a hoodie and jeans. He looked annoyed, bordering on angry. It was just one early-season dud, amid a raft of highlights, but he continued past the family room. His dad did not stop him, or remind him of all the stunning things he had already accomplished, because suffering is another part of star-making. Ten years ago, while everybody fawned over James, he fumed as the Cavaliers struggled. Five years ago it was Durant’s turn to stew, each time the Thunder fell in the final minutes. Now, the mantle is passed to Davis, who will continue to earn plaudits and endure disappointments. The Pelicans are a .500 team, in a brutal conference, and Davis can console himself with the knowledge that he is young and gifted and adored. But the great ones never do.

He kept walking.

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