There is a league of men: Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and, now, Anthony Davis.
Davis has joined an elite group — and Melo — of active players who scored 59 or more points in a game with his 59-point, 20-rebound performance against the Pistons on Sunday.
Perhaps the talk of him not living up to last season’s MVP hype and New Orleans’ paltry record has gotten to him. Recently, Davis is a man on a mission. And that mission is willing his team back into the playoff picture.
He’s responded by putting up a ‘pedestrian’ 30.7 points and 9.2 rebounds per game in February, while shooting 56.3 percent from the field and 38.5 from behind the arc. Keep in mind it’s a 6-foot-10, 253-pound man putting up those shooting numbers.
Due in large part to Davis’ heroics, the Pels won seven of nine games to close out January, have won four of their last five and will continue their path to the playoffs with another “W” against the middling Wizards tonight.
Most detractors are under the assumption that the Pels are all but out of the playoffs, but I say don’t let the 22-33 record fool you.
Fourteen of the final 27 games are against teams with a sub-.500 record. It won’t be easy, but it’s not inconceivable to think New Orleans can win 12 of those, and if it wins seven of the 13 remaining games against “tougher” teams, it’ll finish 41-41.
I’d probably kick my own ass for suggesting a 41-win team could make the playoffs in the Western Conference if it were any other year. But right now, the seventh-seed team is just 29-27 and the eighth is 28-28.
If that doesn’t satisfy you, the Pels are only 5.5 games back from the eighth-seed Rockets and 6.5 from the seventh-seed Trail Blazers.
Blazers guard Damian Lillard is newly determined since not making the All-Star team, leading the Blazers to an 8-1 record while averaging 27.8 points and 8.1 assists per game since the reserves were announced, so the seventh seed is probably not a possibility at this point. But the Rockets are an absolute catastrophe.
There is no pinpointing the exact issue with the Rockets, but one can only assume it boils down to the cancers that are center Dwight Howard and guard Ty Lawson. After being shopped to essentially every team without a center at the trade deadline, there’s actually zero chance Howard has any incentive to turn things in the second half of the season. His apathy will likely continue to be the wet towel derailing Houston’s season.
Meanwhile, the feeling in the Pels locker room is that they are a playoff-caliber team and are very much still in the hunt, and Davis putting up numbers that are making fantasy owners extremely happy isn’t the only thing going for them.
The Chinese say it’s the Year of the Monkey, but I say it’s the year of guard Jrue Holiday’s resurgence. Since Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry lifted his minutes restriction, the oft-injured point guard averages 18.3 points and 7.2 assists in the new year.
Even still, it won’t be an easy task with guard Tyreke Evans on the shelf for the season after undergoing the third surgery on his right knee since May, but newly signed guard Bryce Dejean-Jones has stepped in to provide exactly what this team needs — scrappy play.
Guard Eric Gordon should return from a hand injury in the coming weeks, giving a much-needed scoring threat on the wing. Center Omer Asik is still worthless, but who cares when your power forward is playing at an All-Galaxy level.
With a weak Western Conference, Davis firing on as many cylinders as a Ferrari F1 engine and with a few other guys stepping up, I’m betting on New Orleans sneaking into the playoffs.
Fight me.
Jacob Hamilton is a 21-year-old political science junior from Slidell, Louisiana.