23 Anthony Davis

Anthony Davis was born Anthony Marshon Davis, Jr. in Chicago, Illinois, on March 11, 1993, to Erainer and Anthony Davis, Sr.  He has a twin sister, Antoinette, and an older sister, Lesha who played basketball at Daley College.

Born in Chicago, Davis grew up in the Englewood neighborhood and played high school basketball for Perspectives Charter School, where he had attended school since sixth grade.  The team played in the Blue Division of the Chicago Public High School League, which is ignored by the media because of its lower level of competition.  Perspectives is a charter school that operates as a math and science academy; it has a strong academic reputation, but minimal athletic success.  The school had no gymnasium and Davis’s middle school basketball teams practiced at the nearby Second Presbyterian Church in Chicago’s historic South Loop District. In junior high school, he was known as “the little guy who would shoot threes from the corner”.  He ended his freshman year at a height of 6 feet.  By the beginning of his sophomore year, he had grown another 1 inch, and he finished the year at 6 feet 4 inches.

Davis began his junior basketball season at 6 feet 8 inches, saying he felt fortunate to have had such a rapid growth spurt without any knee pains.  During his junior year, his family considered having him transfer to one of Chicago’s basketball powerhouses, but Hyde Park Career Academy head coach Donnie Kirksey advised against it, saying “If you’re good enough, they’ll find you wherever you are”.  Perspectives finished the season 8–15.  Although he remained unnoticed nationally and locally after three seasons of Chicago Public League play, he was soon thereafter rated as the number one player in the class of 2011 by Scout.com and was listed in the ESPNU 100.  Attention came when he started playing on Tai Streets’ Meanstreets (AAU team) traveling system in the spring of his junior year.  In late April, Syracuse University offered him a scholarship.  That spring, NBA Top 100 Camp Director Dave Telep invited him to the camp based on his dominant first-half performance of the first game of the Fort Wayne, Indiana Spiece Fieldhouse event.  

Davis verbally committed to Kentucky on August 13, 2010, choosing it over DePaul, Ohio State, and Syracuse.  On August 24, 2010, he became the number one rated player in the national class of 2011 at Scout.com.  In August 2010, Davis played in the Nike Global Challenge in Hillsboro, Oregon. In the opening game, he had 23 points and 9 rebounds.  

Davis signed his National Letter of Intent on November 10, 2010.  He began his senior season on the Chicago Sun-Times area 2010 Top 50 list.  He was a pre-season first-team all-state selection by the Sun-Times.  By that time, he stood at 6 feet 10 inches.  His team’s game against Whitney M. Young Magnet High School was nationally televised on ESPNU.  Perspectives finished the season with a 6–19 record.  Despite his growth, Davis continued to perform aspects of the role of a guard during the season by bringing the ball up the court and shooting outside shots.  Davis averaged 32 points, 22 rebounds, and seven blocked shots as a senior.  He was one of four finalists for the Morgan Wootten National Player of the Year Award.  He was a Parade first-team All-America and McDonald’s All-America.  He scored 16 points with 10 rebounds for the USA team in the Nike Hoops Summit.  Davis scored 14 points with six rebounds and four blocks in the McDonald’s All-American Game and was named Co-MVP of the Jordan Brand Classic All-American Game with 29 points, 11 rebounds, and four blocks.

Before his college career began, Davis was mentioned as the first overall selection in the 2012 NBA draft.

After most of the pre-conference schedule but before the 2011–12 Southeastern Conference men’s basketball schedule, Davis’s teammate, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, was mentioned as a possible Southeastern Conference Men’s Basketball Player of the Year.  However, after less than a month of Southeastern Conference play, Davis was not only being mentioned as conference player of the year, but also National Player of the Year.  By mid-February, he was considered a National Player of the Year front-runner with his primary competition coming from Thomas Robinson of Kansas.  As the season progressed, he continued to battle Robinson while developing a college-level offensive game.  Davis averaged a double-double and 6.5 blocks in the two games (November 15, 2011, and April 2, 2012) they played against each other, both on neutral courts.  Davis led the Wildcats to a perfect 16–0 record in conference play en route to the SEC conference regular season championship.  Davis finished the year with averages of 14.2 points per game, 10.4 rebounds per game, 4.7 blocks per game, and a field goal percentage of 62.3%.  The Wildcats entered the SEC Tournament as heavy favorites and defeated LSU and Florida before losing to the Vanderbilt Commodores in the championship game.  Despite the loss, the Wildcats earned the number one overall seed in the 2012 NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament.  In the Wildcats’ six NCAA Tournament games, Davis averaged 15.2 points, 11.2 rebounds and 4.6 blocks per game, and led the team to its eighth NCAA championship.

Davis played one season of college basketball for the University of Kentucky, where he was first-team All-American and the Consensus National Player of the Year. He also won the USBWA National Freshman of the Year, NABC Defensive Player of the Year and the Pete Newell Big Man Award. Davis led the NCAA in blocks and set Southeastern Conference and NCAA Division I freshman single-season blocked shots records. He led Kentucky to a national championship and was named the most outstanding player of the 2012 NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament.

Davis left college for the NBA after one season and was drafted as the first overall pick in the 2012 NBA draft by the New Orleans Hornets, and was selected that summer to play in the 2012 Olympics. After his rookie season, he was named to the NBA All-Rookie First Team. The next season, he became an All-Star for the first time and led the NBA in blocked shots per game. He has since become the youngest player to score at least 59 points in an NBA game. In 2017, he was named the recipient of the NBA All-Star Game MVP Award after setting an All-Star Game scoring record of 52 points. Davis was traded to the Lakers in 2019. He has won gold medals with the United States national team on their 2012 Olympic team and 2014 World Cup team, making him the first player in basketball history to win an NCAA title, NBA title, Olympic gold medal and FIBA World Cup.

Here are some of the awards Davis won in college:

• 2012 First Team All-SEC
• 2012 SEC All-Freshman Team
• 2012 SEC All-Defensive Team
• 2012 SEC Rookie of the Year
• 2012 SEC Defensive Player of the Year
• 2012 SEC Player of the Year
• 2012 South Regional Team
• 2012 Final Four Most Outstanding Player
• 2012 All-Tournament Team
• 2012 consensus First Team All-American
• 2012 USBWA National Freshman of the Year
• 2012 Pete Newell Big Man of the Year
• 2012 NABC Defensive Player of the Year
• 2012 consensus National Player of the Year

Here are some of the records Anthony Davis set in college and where he ranks in all-time statistical categories:

• 1st in Final Four history in two-game block total (since 1973): 11 blocks
• 1st in NCAA history in blocks as a freshman: 186 blocks
• 1st in blocked shot average in 2012: 4.65 blocks per game
• 1st in Kentucky history in blocks in an NCAA tournament game: 7 blocks
• 1st in Kentucky history in field goal percentage by a freshman: .623
• T-2nd in blocks in a single NCAA tournament: 29 blocks
• 4th in NCAA tournament history in rebounds in a single NCAA tournament (since 1973): 74 rebounds
• 4th in NCAA history in blocks in a season: 186 blocks
• T-4th in Final Four history in two-game rebound total (since 1973): 30 rebounds
• T-4th in NCAA history in rebounds as a freshman: 415 rebounds
• T-4th in Kentucky history in rebounds in an NCAA tournament game: 16 rebounds
• 5th in Kentucky history in field goals made by a freshman: 210 field goals
• T-5th in Kentucky history in field goal percentage in an NCAA tournament game (min. 8 att.): .875
• 6th in Kentucky history in field goal percentage in a season: .623
• 6th in Kentucky history in rebounds in a season: 415 rebounds
• T-9th in NCAA tournament history in blocked shots average in a single NCAA tournament: 4.83 blocks per game
• T-11th in NCAA history in double-doubles as a freshman: 20 double-doubles

College Statistics: