While a number of things played into the Lakers’ deep playoff run last season with their in-season additions receiving a good amount of the credit for that run. But perhaps the overarching reason that the Lakers were able to win multiple series was that, for the majority of the postseason, Anthony Davis was the best player on the court.
Only when the Lakers ran into Nikola Jokic, arguably the best player in the world right now, did it become a debate as to whether AD was the best player in a series. And even in a Western Conference Finals in which he was outplayed, he averaged 26.