Going all the way back to his introductory press conference with the Lakers, Anthony Davis has always been open about the fact that he doesn’t want to be a full-time center — even if he’s also consistently maintained that he will play the position when necessary, most notably by playing nearly all of his minutes there last season, and the majority (60%) of his playing time there during the team’s 2020 title run.
Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka has generally attempted to find centers that Davis can play alongside as a result, with last year (2022-23) the only season the team hasn’t mostly had a placeholder starting center alongside Davis for the majority of their games since he joined the team.