By most standards, Anthony Davis’s 2020–21 season was perfectly fine, if not occasionally impressive. His 22-point, eight-rebound, three-assist per game averages warranted selection to an eighth straight All-Star team and, when healthy, Davis pressed on as a crucial member of the league’s top defense.

But, in an ultimately frustrating campaign that saw him take the floor only 41 times, Davis’s 2020–21 season was also a startling nadir. Specifically when processed on the heels of a magnificent coming-out party inside the bubble, where Davis’s staggering two-way dominance was historically notable and impossible to ignore during the ’20 playoffs.

Last season, Davis submitted career-low numbers in several statistical categories that don’t even include the woeful 26% he shot behind the three-point line. His true shooting percentage, offensive and defensive rebound rate and block percentage all plummeted to depths previously unseen. The share of his shots at the rim dropped to a career-low 32% (down 10% from what it was the previous season) and after posting the highest free throw rate of his career in 2020 (.479, then .499 in the playoffs), Davis lodged his lowest mark since he was a rookie (.349). All this was troubling for a pulverizing force who typically unleashes the most singularly destructive version of himself inside the paint.

There are clear reasons why Davis, who turned 28 in March, wasn’t able to build on that legacy-cementing playoff run. A quick recap: The Lakers had about a month to celebrate their title before training camp began, a mental and physical transition Davis never quite settled into. In February, after a 44-minute double-overtime win against the Pistons, he felt some tightness in his calf, a pain that was diagnosed as right Achilles tendinosis and then reaggravated about a week later, sidelining Davis for the next 30 games. In the playoffs, he hyperextended his knee, strained his groin and watched his Lakers fall in the first round to a Suns team that eventually went to the NBA Finals.

When healthy, he’s too long, determined, intelligent, agile and precise to be stifled while handling the ball in areas of the court where he’s comfortable. The uncomfortable spots still exist, but inside the 2020 bubble they shrunk to the point of irrelevance, as Davis posed unanswerable questions with a potent jumper: About half of all his midrange shots went in, a transformative level of accuracy that forced defenders to either throw up their hands in exasperation or bring them together in prayer. Davis had never shot the ball like that before (in the last two regular seasons he made only 34.9% and 34.8% of his midrange tries, respectively). It’s not impossible for him to reach those heights again, though it also shouldn’t be an expectation.

But on the whole, for someone who makes a complex game look like basic arithmetic, it’s less interesting to wonder whether Davis can get back to where he was when a more insightful question dangles over these Lakers: How transcendent can he be on a roster that doesn’t go out of its way to accentuate his strengths so much as take them for granted?