For the fourth time in four NBA seasons, Anthony Davis will fail to reach 70 games played, this time because of surgery on his left knee and surgery on a torn labrum that will end his year prematurely.
After it was announced Davis would miss the remainder of the season following multiple surgeries, ESPN’s Justin Verrier fired off quite the interesting tweet:
Anthony Davis says he's played through a torn labrum for three years
— Justin Verrier (@JustinVerrier) March 21, 2016
Woah. Three years? Encouraging a just-turned 23-year-old Davis to continue playing on a painful injury, right or wrong, isn’t the best of looks for the Pelicans, especially considering the injury concerns which have surrounded the roster over the past few years. Jrue Holiday, Eric Gordon, Tyreke Evans, Omer Asik and Davis — almost every high-profile player on the team — have all had some sort of injury over this season.
But Davis doesn’t seem too disgruntled:
AD says it would have been selfish for him to play injured just to get numbers for an All NBA team so he would get a bonus.
— Scott Kushner (@ScottDKushner) March 21, 2016
Davis signed a five-year, max extension before this season, one which kicks in before the start of the 2016-17 campaign. As with a few previous extensions following rookie deals, the contract is filled with incentives, via the Rose Rule.
The Rose Rule ups the value in a rookie extension if a player makes the All-Star team as a starter twice during the duration of his rookie deal, gets voted to an All-NBA team twice or wins NBA MVP once. Now, it’s looking like Davis won’t make All-NBA for the second time in his career. (He made it for the first time last season.) If he had, it would’ve made him an extra ~$24 million over the course of the upcoming extension.
Some are saying Davis has lost $24 million. That’s not really right. He’s not giving money back. These aren’t dollars he already had—and hopefully it isn’t value he’s fiscally anticipated. It’s merely incentives. And given that A.D. will end the year having played a mere 61 games for a team that’s currently 26-43 and is bound to get worse in his absence, an All-NBA appearance does seem highly unlikely.
The fact, though, that he didn’t feel like he had to grub for stats just to make some extra dough does tell us one of two things:
- Anthony Davis is one heck of a teammate.
- He must be in a whole lot of pain.
Or both.
