Welcome to the Anthony Davis Tankfest

It’s a good time to join the bandwagon of a bad NBA team. One of them is just a pick away from being popular again.

An NBA season has a number of seasons within the season. Of course, there is the pre-season, regular season, and post-season. Then there is the draft season, the free agency season, the trade deadline season, the pre-All-Star season and the post-All-Star season.

We have now entered that last stretch of the regular season, the stretch where contenders try to ensure home-court advantage throughout the playoffs, other playoff teams try to move up the standings to get favourable match ups, and teams jostling for the last few playoff positions playing every game in the season’s last month or so like a final, do-or-die match up.

And then we have the rest… The rest of the NBA’s worst teams who have been suffering loss after loss all season and have no chance of getting a sniff at the playoffs. Many of these teams are playing awful basketball, many of them are suffering from low attendance, many have no star-power to keep their fans or their management optimistic, and many see no light at the end of the tunnel.

Except that, in the NBA, there is light at the end of the tunnel. The NBA’s draft ensures just that. The league’s worst teams have a shot to rebuild every year, and for some, that shot can be as easy as getting lucky with the draft lottery balls or making one smart move on draft night. One of the NBA’s worst-kept secrets is that every year, bad teams want to remain bad or get worse as the regular season reaches its conclusion. They have no hope of making the playoffs, and so, in April, they shift their attention towards June, towards the lottery and the draft. The worse they are, the better their chances of picking higher in the draft, and the better their chances of getting lucky with that one player who could change the face of their franchise.

Proof of that ‘lottery-luck’ is everywhere. If we take a look over just the last decade, there are ample examples of awful teams getting lucky with a high lottery pick and picking a player who brings excitement, optimism, and wins back to the franchise. It happened with the Cavaliers and LeBron James, with the Heat and Dwyane Wade, with the Thunder and Kevin Durant, and with the Clippers and Blake Griffin. All high picks that followed tragic losing seasons.

We call that losing – or secretly losing on purpose to get a high pick – tanking. There is nothing worse than being awful but not being awful enough to be good a year later. And this season, the NBA’s annual tankfest could bring in a whole lotta GOOD.

Let’s bring it now into this season. After what many considered to be a lacklustre draft class last year, the 2012 draft is supposed to feature one of the most talented classes in recent history. The class is deep, so even getting a 10th-15th pick could potentially be a major boost to the falling franchise. Between Andre Drummond, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Thomas Robinson, Bradley Beal, Jared Sullinger, Harrison Barnes, John Henson, Cody Zeller, Perry Jones, Tyler Zeller, Jeremy Lamb, Austin Rivers, and many, many others, there is a lot of talent to choose from and a lot of talent that will be playing professional basketball next season.

But there is one talent that stands far above all. The one player touted to be the unanimous number one pick on Draft Day 2012. The great unibrow himself: Anthony Davis.

A natural shooting guard who grew up to be as big as a power forward, Davis has become one of the most tantalising NBA prospects in recent history. SLAM Magazine’s Editor-in-Chief even called him the most sure-shot number one pick since LeBron James in 2003. As a high-schooler, he was already being rated as a top three or top five player whenever he did decide to declare for the draft. But the 19-year-old’s first (and only) season at Kentucky has truly distinguished him from any other challengers.

How’s this for a year-long (Summer 2011-Summer 2012) resume? Recruited by college basketball’s most successful programme (Kentucky) at 18 to be the anchor for Coach Calipari’s title-contending team. Winning the Player of the Year Award, Defensive Player of the Year Award, Freshman of the Year Award, Big Man of the Year Award, and Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four Award. Winning the National Championship. And yes, by the end of the summer, being the number one pick in the NBA Draft.

Davis is a rare commodity, as a player who is considered the best in any given game even though the scoring numbers tell a different story. And that truly becomes the benchmark of a great player, one who can dominate a basketball game without dominating the ball. He has a large, fearsome wingspan, an unquenchable thirst to block shots, the ability to play multiple positions despite his 6’10” size, and has even gathered comparisons to the great Bill Russell. The closest comparison that I feel for Davis would be a young Kevin Garnett, a player who can truly have an immense influence on both sides of the floor.

Talented big men are rare in the NBA, and with someone with the hype of Davis on the board this year, it’s no surprise that over half a dozen NBA teams have already unofficially checked into the Anthony Davis sweepstakes. A number 2-10 pick wouldn’t be bitter, but the true reward is at number one. At this young, prodigious, unibrowed talent who could turn a bad team into a contender in a few years.

It’s no surprise then that a lot of awful NBA teams have started to look a little more awful than usual right now. Yes, we can blame end-of-season fatigue and the fact that these teams regularly go against better squads in ‘must-win’ situations. But I would like to blame the ‘Anthony Davis Tankfest’, aka, the fully-focused attempt to ‘naturally’ lose as many games as possible before the season finishes to have the best shot at the lottery and the Unibrow. Here are the teams actively taking part, with notes of how a potential addition of Davis could change them:

Charlotte Bobcats: Leading the way forward (er, backward) are Michael Jordan’s Bobcats, who have been one of the least-watchable squads this season. The Bobcats are still the only team to have single-digit number of wins (7) this season, and if there is anyone that deserves a Unibrowed break, it is them. What do you expect from a squad that has a washed up Corey Maggette as their ‘go-to’ guy? The Bobcats do have some intriguing future pieces in Kemba Walker and Bismack Biyombo, and adding Davis to this young crew will not only double their talent level in one swift second but also add that anchor that this franchise desperately hungers for. The Bobcats, in their eight-year history, have yet to have a star player that has truly caught the imagination of their fans. In Davis, they will finally have their LeBron, their Griffin, their first star whom they can build around for years.

Washington Wizards: The Wizards (12-43) could be an intriguing destination for Davis, because they already have the pieces waiting to mature and start winning. John Wall and Anthony Davis could make a fun inside-outside combo, and with Davis as their anchor, this team could even soar up to a playoff spot in his first season there. With Nene, Jordan Crawford, and Jan Vesley also in the mix, this is a squad just waiting to be moulded the right way.

New Orleans Hornets: That Chris Paul trade, huh. The NBA-owned Hornets essentially gave up their best player for Eric Gordon and draft picks, and Eric Gordon missed most of the season to injury. The Hornets find themselves holding to an embarrassing 14-40 after an impressive show last season where they gave the Lakers a scare in the first round of the playoffs. Now, even if Gordon returns, would the Hornets really want to play him to decrease their chances of being worse (!)? Despite their substandard roster, the Hornets have given some good teams a scare this season, and if they get a shot at Davis, they can truly resurrect their franchise just a year after it was torn apart. Davis will be a good fit to the core of Gordon, Chris Kaman (if he stays), Trevor Ariza, Marco Belinelli, Carl Landry, and Emeka Okafor and will help the fans of the franchise forgive the NBA for the atrocities suffered in that CP3 trade. Thanks to that trade, the Hornets have a second first-round pick (from the Timberwolves) in the draft, increasing their chances of picking high this year.

Toronto Raptors: The Raptors are oh-so-close. They have a 2006 first pick who if finally improving in Andrea Bargnani. They have a talented young wing in DeMar DeRozan. And they have a steady-if-not-spectacular point guard Jose Calderon. Perhaps most importantly, they have last year’s fifth pick Jonas Valanciunas, the young Lithuanian superstar who has been destroying European basketball for a few years now. Valaciunas has yet to come and play in the NBA, and if his arrival coincides with Davis’, this could be one hell of a squad again. Davis will have to fit in the shuffle of the versatile forwards in Toronto, but that shouldn’t be a problem considering his own versatility.

Cleveland Cavaliers: The Cavs lost LeBron but got lucky just a year later with the first pick, where they bagged soon-to-be rookie of the year Kyrie Irving. Irving has been good but not good enough to keep this squad consistent. If, despite their slightly lower odds, they can somehow get a first pick, Cleveland fans would probably forget that the LeBron-era ever happened and find themselves salivating at the chance of a future pairing of Irving and Davis. This is another talented young team who could get a playoff boost with Davis in the mix.

And the rest… ‘The rest of the worse’ who are trying to be as bad as possible for Davis include the Kings (great players who need maturity), the Pistons (Davis will be popular with the city’s hard-nosed defensive mentality), and the Bucks. The Nets and the Warriors have both given away their 2012 first round picks to the Blazers and the Jazz respectively, and thus, these two teams could have an outside shot at bagging the Unibrow too.

Whatever happens, I have no doubt that Davis goes first, regardless of whether or not the team picking first already has someone in his position. Players like him come once in a generation and shouldn’t be missed. I’m a big advocate of always picking talent in the draft – over size or need – and then finding a way to make that talent work.

So this year, the talent that they all will fight for is Anthony Davis. And while the Bulls, Thunder, Heat, and Lakers fight for a championship, and the Suns, Knicks, Bucks and Nuggets fight for a playoff place, keep your eye on the bottom-feeders fight between the Bobcats, Wizards, Hornets, Raptors, Cavaliers, and others. A fight to be the worst to get a shot at the best.