On Wednesday evening, the Los Angeles Lakers dropped to an even 6-6 on the young 2023-24 NBA season with a disappointing home loss to the Sacramento Kings. The Lakers fell behind by a lot early in this one, and although the Purple And Gold were able to make things slightly interesting with a push in the fourth quarter, they were ultimately unable to complete the comeback against a solid Kings squad.

One player who struggled mightily for Los Angeles was star power forward/center Anthony Davis, who scored just nine points, being thoroughly outplayed by Kings big man Damontas Sabonis throughout the evening.

Now, pundits in the national media are letting Davis hear about it, including NBA insider Brian Windhorst of ESPN, who unleashed a scathing criticism of Anthony Davis' on Thursday morning's episode of First Take.

“Anthony Davis' performance in this game was once again unacceptable,” said Windhorst. “Damontas Sabonis comes in, outscores him by 20, outrebounds him by seven in a game that was decided by 15 points… you cannot compete in this conference at this time, and you fall down by 145 points every first quarter, and Anthony Davis only shows up part of the time.”

Inconsistency is indeed the key reason why Davis is not viewed as a consensus top three to five player in the league. When he's at his best, Davis can look like perhaps one of the most dominant big men in NBA history; however, as Lakers fans have come to realize, Davis' best does not occur nearly frequently enough.