“I’m the best in the world. I think I do a lot of things that a lot of players can’t do as far as playing a complete game. I can play on the block, play on the perimeter, play defense on both ends, switch 1-5, guard, score the basketball.” -- Davis

Earlier this month, Lakers superstar Davis explicitly staked his claim as the best player in the world in an interview with Sports Illustrated. While Davis is unequivocally one of the premier players in the league and on track to be a Hall of Famer from our perspective here at Yardbarker, this proclamation probably raised a few eyebrows, especially after his ill-fated trade demand last season derailed any momentum he had going for him.

However, if you step back from the negative noise online and take a more macro view of Davis’ career, you’ll realize two things: (1) Davis’ past three seasons not only put him smack dab in the middle of the best player in the world argument but also in the pantheon conversation for Hall of Fame-caliber modern big men along with Shaquille O’Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon, Tim Duncan, David Robinson, Kevin Garnett and Patrick Ewing; and (2) if the respective careers of these comparable all-time great two-way bigs tell us anything, Davis is yet to hit his true prime.

Much like KG, Davis entered the NBA as a teenager and needed his rookie season to mature physically and test the limitations of his abilities. His stats were modest: 14 points, eight rebounds and about two blocks per game. However, it was clear there was superstar talent in those cartoonishly broad shoulders of his. In his second season, his game took a leap, as he averaged 21 points and 10 rebounds and led the league in blocks (2.8 per game). He made his first All-Star team that year and has never looked back. In his third season, Davis increased his scoring to over 24 points, grabbed 10 rebounds per game and again led the league in blocks (2.9 per game). Heading into his fourth season, 86.2 percent of participants in the NBA GM Survey voted Davis as the player they’d pick as their franchise cornerstone.

But Davis suffered through an injury-riddled fourth year and despite posting almost identical numbers to those of his third season, the attention-deficit basketball community got wandering eyes for the likes of Karl-Anthony Towns and other shiny, new big men. Davis responded by unleashing a three-year stretch that stands up to that of any of the six aforementioned all-time greats (more on those guys later), averaging 28 points, 12 rebounds, three assists, two blocks and over one steal per game on 52-32-81 shooting splits. His player efficiency rating (PER) over those three years was 28.7. Speaking of PER, did you know Davis currently has the third-best career PER (27.4) in NBA history behind only Michael Jordan (27.9) and James (27.6)?

After a virtuoso second half of his 2017-18 season, there was some "Anthony Davis is the best player in basketball" buzz, as he finished third in the MVP vote and entered the 2018-19 season as the undisputed best big man in basketball. Unfortunately, the poorly handled (by many people on all sides) trade demand combined with the anti-Klutch Sports, anti-Lakers media narrative resulted in people forgetting how amazing The Brow really is. (His per-36 numbers last season, in case you cared, were the best of his career in points, rebounds and assists: 28 points, 13 rebounds, four assists, three blocks and two steals per 36 minutes to go along with a 30.3 PER. Down year, right?)

Criticize Davis all you want for forcing his way to the Lakers, but don’t act surprised when he and LeBron hit you with a “forgot about Dre” kind of season in 2019-2020.