As Lakers fans watch Anthony Davis and LeBron James help push Team USA deeper into the Olympic hoops tourney, there's a lot of chatter among online purple and gold fans about how Davis is performing, and the way he's playing. Paired often with another great defensive center in Bam Adebayo, Davis looks at times much more like the old PF he was when he arrived in Los Angeles. 

There's talk that he's slimmed down from the bulkier version we've seen. (It can be hard to tell, honestly.) 

But what does AD's body type mean? Is he looking for more minutes at power forward vs. center? He's certainly very effective there when paired with the right frontcourt mate. Are there alternate reasons he might look to change his body shape? Take some weight off? Change his functional strength? 

Well, there's how he matches up against the bigger, bulkier centers in the West, first of all. Is he better off trying to get stronger? or lean into his quickness advantage? And as he gets older and the mileage piles up, extra weight is the enemy of good health. There are all sorts of positionally agnostic reasons for Davis to slim down. 

Either way, it's enormously complicated for the Lakers to give Davis extended minutes at PF. In part because they don't have a backcourt mate that looks anything like Bam Adebayo (or even Myles Turner, who is a Laker on Earth 2, 3, or 4), but because AD at the 4 means LeBron James at the 3. And at age 40, that's a tall order. 

HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky

SEGMENT 1: Anthony Davis... slimmer? 

SEGMENT 2: Why are we having the AD-at-PF conversation again? 

SEGMENT 3: Why it just doesn't work... 

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