Mirjam Swanson is a sports activities columnist for the Southern California Information Group, our companion publication.
“Concussion!?” Stephen A. Smith screeched on ESPN’s “First Take” on Thursday morning, his most incredulous stage of falsetto threatening eardrums throughout the nation. “I assumed the NFL season was over.”
Wait, what?
“I perceive that concussions can occur in different sports activities – boxing, UFC. I imply, if the collision is fierce sufficient, I suppose it might occur in basketball too however rattling, I ain’t see nothing yesterday that made me say concussion!”
What even – what?
“Was he operating over the center and bought hit by Ronnie Lott or one thing? Did I miss one thing? Did he get hit by Aaron Donald? Did I miss one thing?!”
Did Smith miss 7-foot strongman Kevon Looney swinging his substantial forearm into Anthony Davis’ head on Wednesday evening, throughout Recreation 5 of the Lakers-Golden State Warriors second-round playoff collection? Knocking him off kilter and sending him to the bench, after which into the tunnel, dazed and itemizing to at least one aspect?
“Damnit, I’d be damned if I wasn’t laughing.”
Oh, no. Let me again away from this keyboard.
… really, no. Let’s write.
The notion that Davis might need a concussion – it was unclear Thursday morning, when Smith was ranting, whether or not he did – is so laugh-out-loud humorous as a result of … why?
As a result of it’s A.D.?
The Rodney Dangerfield of NBA champions?
The league’s finest defender whose title was omitted from the NBA’s first and second All-Defensive groups, and who bought solely 9 second-team votes? Although he was tied for second amongst facilities with 9.1 defensive rebounds per sport and third with 1.1 steals and – that is key – performed extra minutes (1,904) this season than Memphis’ Jaren Jackson Jr. (1,787), your 2022-23 Defensive Participant of the 12 months?
The Lakers’ 30-year-old middle who has been made out, by the speaking heads dictating the nationwide narrative, as one thing of a wimp? Or, at finest, a 6-foot-10 tall drink of water served in your grandma’s fanciest and most fragile porcelain glass?
That’s the popularity, proper? In response to some non-doctors on Twitter, he’s “a identified dramatic crybaby,” and a “glass giraffe,” not the participant who’s combating by means of a proper foot harm this postseason – and who nonetheless has been one of the crucial impactful performers in any collection.
His swarming, stifling, spectacular protection – I do know, protection, invisible to these with rocks for brains – has helped carry the Lakers inside a sport of the Western Convention finals. He’s averaging 13.5 rebounds and three.5 blocked photographs per sport!
Davis’ scoring, which sure, has are available in spurts, averages out to 21.5 factors per sport – greater than any large man within the playoffs in addition to Nikola Jokic (30.6) and Joel Embiid (24.6). And only one level much less per sport than LeBron James is averaging.
However you’d assume, the way in which Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley fell right into a laughing match Wednesday evening on TNT’s “Contained in the NBA” after the Lakers’ 121-106 Recreation 5 loss, that A.D. is a joke.
That he’s some scrub and never one of many NBA’s High 75 gamers ever. That he isn’t the man who had the fortitude in 2020 to complete the job within the confines – pleasant to nobody – of a bubble removed from dwelling. He hit enormous photographs, bear in mind, and averaged 27.7 factors and 9.7 rebounds in the course of the Lakers’ run to a seventeenth championship.
Yeah, however…
I can hear you on the market, you don’t must yell: a.D. Is INjury pRONe!
Do you know that Davis, within the 4 seasons since he joined the Lakers, has performed extra video games (194) than Steph Curry (188) in that span? That they each performed 56 video games this season?
Now think about the tenor of the dialog if it had been Curry who’d taken a shot to the top on Wednesday.
We'd have heard expressions of concern. Speak of correct protocols and defending a revered athlete. Applicable discourse.
It will have been a reminder about how important it's for everybody enjoying sports activities – whether or not you’re a woman enjoying soccer, a boy enjoying ice hockey or a hooper combating for a rebound – of how one can thoughts attainable mind accidents.
It will’ve appeared like this: “It’s a simple argument to make that his life is on the road when he steps out on the sphere.”
That’s Smith, by the way in which, just some weeks in the past, on April 20. He was on TV reacting to Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa’s admission that he contemplated retirement after struggling a number of concussions final season.
Simply gonna go away this right here. https://t.co/fVnDggur9K
— Mirjam Swanson (@MirjamSwanson) Might 11, 2023
“What occurred with him was legal,” a solemn, sober Smith mentioned then. “He ought to have by no means, ever been allowed to remain on the sphere, regardless that he survived that sport that Miami gained (in opposition to Buffalo), and he actually shouldn’t have been allowed on the sphere that Thursday evening in opposition to Cincinnati, when one other hit, the place his head hit the turf and it seemed like rigor mortis had kicked in and his fingers have been contorted, and his physique froze.
“It was a scary, scary sight to see.”
So … not humorous, in different phrases?
As a result of it didn’t occur to Anthony Davis?
Sufficient folks let or not it's identified that they didn't discover any humor in Davis’ harm that Smith was moved to stroll again his feedback on Twitter later Thursday.
“Blow again is Blow again,” he tweeted. “Comes with the territory, peeps. I used to be on no account minimizing the seriousness of a concussion. I used to be questioning whether or not Anthony Davis actually had one, contemplating the play I noticed & different hits I’ve seen him take up. However, backside line, it was mistaken for me to do. Interval! My dangerous.”
There are scorching takes, there are dangerous takes – after which there are dangerous takes.
My solely take: Right here’s hoping the Lakers and people round Davis take excellent care of him.
Anthony Davis simply exited the world after Recreation 5. pic.twitter.com/YYMMr4q0mv
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) Might 11, 2023