The sample sizes are tiny, but New Orleans' early success opens up a lot of intriguing possibilities for when Davis does return. The 1½ games in which Davis has played have been impressive, to say the least. His outrageous 35.1 PER is the best in the NBA among players who have logged at least 40 minutes, per Basketball-Reference.com.
Recently, Henry Abbott floated the idea of playing Davis at 3 in order to enhance his skills development, and Brett Koremenos at HoopSpeak wrote an involved treatment of the subject. The idea has plenty of merit. Abbott mentioned one benefit being that doing so would serve as a form of unintentional tanking for the rebuilding Hornets. However, as well as New Orleans has played so far, it's not clear that a healthy version of its 2012-13 roster is going to lose big, regardless of how Davis is deployed.
Can Davis play the 3? In a word, yes. And he should play it now.
Davis' versatility
When you go to the video of Davis' regular-season performance, you immediately see that he has been used primarily on the weak side on offense, working the baseline for lobs and flaring out when the lane is overloaded. He shows a nice stroke out to 20 feet, not with a quick release but with the kind of length that will ensure good looks. He's smooth and patient when floating out to the perimeter, but really revs it up when attacking the offensive glass or diving on pick-and-rolls.
His play has been something of a revelation, even to Williams.
"I'm still getting used to who he is as a player," Williams said. "He shoots the ball better than I thought. He has really good footwork. He can handle the ball, he can pass. He can make passes out of a situation that most big men can't make a pass out of."
These are the observations you hear about Davis time and again. Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau said, "He's a basketball player. He does everything. He can shoot, he can put it on the floor, he can pass, play great defense, great timing on shot blocks, great quickness. He's going to be a great pro."
{As per HR.com's TOS, please do not copy and paste entire pay for content articles.}
http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/story...is-3-right-now