Fantasy Basketball: Will Playing in Cleveland Kill Baron Davis' Value?

Tonight Baron Davis is expected to make his Cleveland Cavalier debut against the New York Knicks. Davis will be coming off the bench for now and his minutes will likely be limited as he works the knee back to full strength. Long-term, though, the goal is for him to be the starter within the next few weeks or as dictated by the health of the knee.

Now that Baron is ready to take the court the question is this: How much value does Davis hold as a member of the Cavs?

Most of your experts out there are proclaiming Davis’ trade to Cleveland as the death of his fantasy value. For many, the fact that Baron is going to Cleveland—arguably the worst team in the league—will kill any motivation to perform well and an unmotivated Baron is apparently a bad Baron to own.

He’s also leaving Eric Gordon and Blake Griffin for Anthony Parker and J.J. Hickson, which might make for a difficult transition. And then there is the bad history between head coach Byron Scott and Davis which might put Baron in the doghouse.

Those are a lot of reasons to not like The Baron, but I do love to argue the other side, and I don’t think his fantasy value is going to take a hit in Cleveland—at least not to the extent that is being assumed. If I have any reservations about Davis’ value going forward, it is tied completely and solely to my concern over his knee which is something you’ll just have to keep an eye on.

The accusation that Davis plays poorly when he lacks motivation is difficult to support with statistics.

When Davis left Golden State for Los Angeles and then was essentially “dumped” by Elton Brand—who bolted at the same time—Davis lost some motivation for the game. Yet he still averaged 15 points, 7.7 assists and 1.7 steals per game that year. When expectations were high for the team last year and then they lost Blake Griffin for the season and continued to be one of the worst teams in the league, he averaged 15 points, eight assists and 1.7 steals. It’s difficult to support an argument that Baron can’t play without proper motivation when he’s been doing it the last two seasons.

As far as the talent in Cleveland, it certainly leaves a little something to be desired. But it’s not completely devoid of talent, these are still NBA players after all. Ramon Sessions is coming off a month where he averaged nearly 20 points and nine assists every game. So again, it’s tough to convince me that you can’t put up stats with this crew around you.

But when you discuss Ramon Sessions' recent success, you're actually just adding another problem to the mix, right? Not necessarily—though this one does worry me a little bit more than the other arguments.

Sessions is going to be tough to keep off the court, but you don’t have to keep him off the court to keep Davis on it. I think once he’s healthy Davis takes over the point guard duties, and when that happens I assume Sessions will shift over to shooting guard as a starter or take on the Jamal Crawford/Jason Terry role and play 30 minutes off the bench and share the court with Baron for much of the game. Sessions' stats—at least the assists—are going to take a hit for sure, but he’ll still score plenty and I don’t think he’ll take much away from The Baron either.

The only concern left to deal with is Byron Scott. According to both men, they patched things up a couple years ago and they’ve been playing nice so far. Could things get bad again? Absolutely. But right now, I have no reason to think they haven’t set aside their differences and that it won’t play a role in things at all.

Are we going to get the 20-and-eight Baron Davis of old in Cleveland? No, that Baron Davis is gone. But the guy is coming off two straight seasons of 15 points and 7.5 assists per game and he put up those numbers with a bit more scoring the last two months. Davis has certainly seen his best days, but don’t think he can’t still get you 14-15 points, seven-eight assists and lots of steals—even in Cleveland.

The only real concern I have right now is that knee. That alone makes him a bit of a gamble, but at the price you can get him right now in a trade, it’s a gamble I might actually make.

Check out Rotoprofessor for more fantasy sports knowledge.