ESPN NBA insider Tim Bontemps didn’t hold back about Anthony Davis when discussing the 2024-25 NBA season and the potential candidates that could win the MVP award.
Brian Windhorst brought up the Los Angeles Lakers star as an option to win the MVP next season, but he was quickly met with pushback and claims that Davis doesn’t have a chance to win the award this season.
“Anthony Davis was absolutely spectacular for Team USA,” Windhorst said. “His physical conditioning is awesome. Now, I haven’t seen him in the last three weeks – two weeks. I don’t know where he’s at right now. I don’t know if he’s going to stay healthy. He is at +10,000.”
Bontemps immediately chimed in to end Windhorst’s endorsement of Davis.
“Anthony Davis is not winning MVP,” Bontemps said.
Both Bontemps and Tim MacMahon agreed that LeBron James was actually the most valuable Lakers player that was on Team USA. James ended up winning the Olympic MVP after Team USA took home the gold medal in Paris.
“Yeah, he looked great,” Bontemps said of Davis at the Olympics. “And he has absolutely no chance to win MVP.”
It’s a little bit of a harsh take from Bontemps, but Davis hasn’t really been in the MVP conversation for several seasons. He finished sixth in the MVP voting in the 2019-20 season when the Lakers went on to win the title, but he has not finished that high in the MVP voting since.
The former No. 1 overall pick did have a few seasons where he finished in the top five in the MVP voting during his time with the New Orleans Pelicans, but Davis is on a much different team in Los Angeles.
Playing alongside James, there are times where one can argue that Davis isn’t even the best player on his own team.
Still, the nine-time All-Star is coming off of a terrific 2023-24 season where he averaged 24.7 points, 12.6 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 1.2 steals and 2.3 blocks per game while shooting 55.6 percent from the field.
Davis also played in 76 games last season, by far the most he’s appeared in during his time as a Laker. His previous high with Los Angeles came in the 2019-20 season when he appeared in 62 regular season games.
For Davis to win the MVP award in the 2024-25 season, he’d not only have to put up similar – if not better – numbers to last season but he would also have to lead the Lakers to a higher seed in the Western Conference standings.
Los Angeles has finished the regular season in the play-in tournament field in each of the last two seasons.
Hopefully for Lakers fans, Davis will prove Bontemps wrong and play himself into the MVP conversation in the 2024-25 campaign.
