It’s hard being a superstar. Well, not that hard, but in an on-court sense, the expectations and superlatives we heap almost instantly on the greatest talents tend to be altogether too high. We identify greatness in teenagers and amplify predictions of success before they can legally drink the figurative champagne. It’s too easy for the public to fawn over winners and put pressure on those that haven’t won. Patience runs thin quickly, and navigating the gauntlet of opinion is almost a game in itself.
There’s an awkward phase in every ascendance where antsy levels of frustration creep in. Remember all the sludge that flew at the end of LeBron James’s first tour with Cleveland? The rhetoric surrounding Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook rang similar for many years in Oklahoma City. Hey, did you know Chris Paul has never been to the conference finals? Frank Ocean wants you to remember that Carmelo Anthony has no rings. There’s always a point where excitement gets replaced by cynicism.
If there’s one overarching truth to wean from those prominent case studies in the Can-This-Guy-Win-A-Title conversation, it’s that stars almost always mature faster than it takes for the right teammates to assemble and coalesce around them. And with the new season less than two weeks away, this annual through-line runs directly to Anthony Davis.
Karl-Anthony Towns may have hijacked the emerging big man conversation a bit after injuries cut Davis’s season short, but it shouldn’t take much for people to remember what’s he’s already done in New Orleans. Anthony Davis the superstar has already happened. The numbers are there, the eye test takes no time, and a year ago he was floating on the outskirts of the preseason MVP conversation. The big issue lies with the increasingly gloomy state of the Pelicans, who last season seemed to be perpetually hurtling toward disaster.
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