LeBron James used to quit social media for the playoffs. Anthony Davis is going a step further.
Anthony Davis has deactivated his Instagram pic.twitter.com/iNcbFgR9f0
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPointsApp) February 14, 2023
The Los Angeles Lakers have one of the biggest and most passionate fan bases in the NBA. That's great when the team is going well, but brutal when the team is struggling.
After the Lakers lost to the Trail Blazers, 127-115, social media erupted with criticism of Davis, who didn't even play that badly. Davis had 19 points on 8-of-18 shooting and a whopping 20 rebounds, but he couldn't overcome the three-point blitz from the Blazers. They went 23-of-37 from deep.
Perhaps Davis had enough. Tuesday, the Brow completely deactivated his Instagram account. We'd look for an explanation, but traditionally, an NBA player would do that on Instagram. He still has his Twitter account, but his last tweet was more than six months ago, a retweet of this post from John Calipari:
This is what makes you proud as a coach.
— John Calipari (@UKCoachCalipari) August 3, 2022
I didn’t want to ask any of our former guys for help since six months ago they gave to the tornado victims in west Kentucky, but without my asking, @AntDavis23 got in touch with me tonight. pic.twitter.com/DQn3EGEDcM
Observers have speculated that Davis looks unhappy in general. He had a dour reaction to LeBron James breaking the scoring record, but he explained he was upset that the Lakers were losing the game.
Anthony Davis’ reaction to LeBron breaking the all-time scoring record is… something
— Kicks (@kicks) February 8, 2023
(via @AnthonyIrwinLA )
pic.twitter.com/57nn3D80IL
The simple explanation may be that, with Russell Westbrook gone, Lakers fans have lost the player they scapegoated for the team's struggles the last two seasons. They're not going to turn on James, so Davis is the next obvious target, especially as he struggles to recapture his All-Star form after a foot injury cost him more than a month.
While it's a bad sign for his happiness, Davis isn't really missing anything. After all, Gen Z has already shifted to TikTok, and at 29, he might not enjoy it anymore.
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