Few players entered the league with the kind of hype that surrounded Anthony Davis. After leading the Kentucky Wildcats to the 2012 NCAA championship, Davis was selected first overall by the New Orleans Hornets (now New Orleans Pelicans), beginning a professional career that would see him become one of the most decorated big men of his generation.
He joined the Los Angeles Lakers in 2019 and won an NBA championship alongside LeBron James in 2020. He was then traded to the Dallas Mavericks in February 2025 as part of the blockbuster deal that sent Luka Doncic to Los Angeles. A year later, Dallas moved him again, this time to the Washington Wizards.
At 33, Davis finds himself on a rebuilding team, further from the spotlight than at any point in his career.
Jerome Miron-Imagn Images
But Davis’ talent has never been the issue; the bigger concern in recent years has been his inability to stay on the floor. During his final years in Los Angeles, Davis battled a succession of injuries that continued throughout his tenure in Dallas. This past January, he suffered ligament damage in his left hand that ultimately ruled him out for the rest of the season.
With his 14th season now behind him, Davis sat down with Today’s Craig Melvin on the “Glass Half Full” podcast and laid out exactly what he still wants to accomplish before retirement. “I haven’t got MVP. I haven’t got Defensive Player of the Year,” he said. “I want the parade for a championship, so I want to be able to do that again… it’s still things I want to try to get. I want to get 20,000 points. I want to play 20 years.”
Davis’ goals are quite ambitious, but not unrealistic if he stays healthy. Davis is a 10-time All-Star with four All-NBA First Team selections, five All-Defensive Team nods and an NBA championship ring. He has averaged at least 20 points and nine rebounds in all but one season since his rookie year.
The MVP and DPOY hardware, which his peers like Giannis Antetokounmpo, Nikola Jokić and Rudy Gobert have collected during Davis’ prime years, remain conspicuously absent from his résumé. But that’s partly because he has struggled to stay healthy (he has made more than 56 regular-season appearances only twice in the past seven years).
Davis will have another opportunity to check off some of those goals when he returns for his 15th NBA season. He has been cleared for light contact and will continue rehabbing his hand throughout the offseason.
Whether Washington is the right stage for a championship run and individual silverware is debatable, but the desire is clearly still there. At his best, Davis remains one of the most unguardable players in the sport. The question, as it has been for years, is how many nights he can actually be at his best.
