LEWIS: I’LL PLAY PATIENCE AT SILVERSTONE

ANTHONY DAVIS has one of the toughest jobs in basketball – trying to get noticed when LeBron James is your team-mate.

But as 22 NBA teams prepare to renew hostilities on Thursday following the pandemic shutdown, Davis returns to action as the LA Lakers’ leading scorer.

His 26.7 points per game average is one better than James’s and that firepower has the team top of the Western Conference – and Laker fans dreaming of a first NBA Finals appearance in 10 years.

Davis is modest about his own chances of being voted the league’s best player this season and says the MVP award should go to James. But Lakers head coach Frank Vogel says Davis (above) can become the best player in the game.

“The potential for Anthony Davis has always been that there’s no ceiling with what he’s able to do,” said Vogel as the Lakers get ready to take on LA rivals the Clippers in their first game back.

“He has been resilient, playing through injuries this year. That’s been a big growth point for him. LeBron’s influence has weighed in there. But if Anthony stays healthy, the sky’s the limit.

“He can dominate the game on the defensive end of the floor and there’s nothing he can’t do offensively.”

FIVE days before the World Championship starts, Steve Davis has looked back on the days when he helped send the nation ‘snooker loopy’.

This year’s tournament begins on Friday, and Judd Trump defends a title that Davis won six times in the 1980s in a run which made him one of that decade’s biggest celebrities.

Millions were drawn to their television screens by the epic dramas as Davis duelled with Alex Higgins, Cliff Thorburn and other green-baize legends.

Barry Hearn, at the time Davis’s manager and currently World Snooker’s chairman, said that he and Davis “transformed snooker from a pastime to the most popular sport on TV.”

Davis was reputedly among the country’s best-paid sportsmen in the 1980s, as he topped the world rankings for seven successive seasons.

Davis, 62, recalled: “Around the time I was ready to turn professional, television was looking to expand its coverage.

“I was in the right place at the right time. But when I turned professional in 1978 it wasn’t to make money.

“I wanted to play at a better standard to improve my game. Three years later, I was world champion and the game had gone bizarre. Television took snooker by the scruff of the neck and everything went silly.

“It was quite amazing. I went from being unknown to being well known and it was a real shock to the mind.

“The world was going mad when I walked down the high street. But people at my local snooker club would soon shoot me down in flames. Nobody is bigger than anyone else there. Everyone just takes the p**s.”

To his clubmates, he was ‘Personality Minus’ and TV show Spitting Image gave him a nickname ‘Interesting’ that was latched onto by a public who willed the colourless potting machine to lose.

“I didn’t get upset when people wanted me to lose,” said Davis. “I’m British too, so I understood it.”

The more Davis won, the harder it got to beat him.

“I got used to winning,” he said. “I was going up to the table expecting to pot balls. I was in a

LEWIS HAMILTON will be happy to play a waiting game at Silverstone next Sunday – but old foe

Sebastian Vettel looks set for a season of discontent.

Silverstone will be the setting for the 69th British Grand Prix with Hamilton aiming for a seventh win on home soil. But Vettel and Ferrari will be down among the also-rans – in a frantic bid to recover, the Italian giants have replaced their entire technical department.

Team boss Mattia Binotto has taken complete responsibility and says his backroom boys are working full-tilt to restore their reputation.

Vettel was lapped by Hamilton with 13 laps to go as the British ace romped to victory in

Hungary last Sunday, and Scuderia chief Binotto admitted: “To be lapped is a distinct embarrassment. Very painful for the team and fans. “Our current dynamic is completely unacceptable and we hope, working against the clock, we can now reorganise, and stop our backwards steps.”

Over at Mercedes, Hamilton (left) is in mindand blowing form. He was three seconds ahead after just one lap at the Hungaroring and 26 seconds in the lead before his final pit stop, when he grabbed the fastest lap.

He beamed: “That all felt great. I did not push too much for fear I might make a mistake and go off.

“I have lost the championship in the past by just one point, so I know how critical it is to maximise every moment. And that’s my plan for Silverstone. Patience...”