Unlike Carmelo Anthony, this is a story about a player that isn’t playing where he wants to play. If you don’t feel sorry for Baron Davis then you don’t have a heart. In a shocking move, even for the Clippers, Baron Davis and the Clipper’s first-round pick in the 2011 draft was traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers in exchange for point guard Mo Williams and forward Jamario Moon. Davis is yet another high profile point guard to head out East, joining Deron Williams.
For any basketball player, playing in Cleveland right now is probably the last place you’d want to be, aside from Toronto, but at least that city is one of the coolest in Canada. I’m sure Cleveland residents would argue that their city is one of the coolest in the States, but that’s a tough sell.
For Baron Davis, a guy from California who played his college ball at UCLA and had his best season while playing in the Bay Area for the Warriors; playing in Cleveland must be basketball hell. Let’s just hope him and Byron Scott can get along this time.
Just a short week ago Davis was throwing alley-oops into the sky for the Reignman Reloaded (Blake Griffin) now he’ll be throwing them to J.J Hickson. Hickson is a solid young player, but I’ve never seen him dunk over a car.
I still can’t figure out how this trade makes sense for the Clippers. Even though I promised myself to never try and understand the kind of nonsense the Clippers franchise has been pulling, this one is still a head scratcher. Jamario Moon is a mid level role player at best and Mo Williams is a shoot first point guard. If you compare Mo’s numbers to Baron’s, Mo averaged 13.3 points and 7.1 assists in 36 games for Cleveland this year, while Davis averaged 12.8 points and 7.0 assists in 43 games with the Clippers. That’s not a huge difference.
There is the matter of Baron’s huge Clipper contract, Davis is owed $29 million US over the next two seasons. Perhaps the Clippers are making room to keep Blake Griffin whose three year rookie contract expires next year.
But there’s a problem, a guy like Griffin probably wants to go some place where he can win, giving away draft picks and proven point guards like Davis in exchange for LeBron’s old crew isn’t exactly getting the job done.
