Cleveland Cavaliers: With Baron Davis' Arrival, Are They Finally Coming Around?
The Cleveland Cavaliers traded away Mo Williams and Jamario Moon before the trade deadline a few weeks ago for the Los Angeles Clippers' first-round pick in this year's draft and Baron Davis.
In that trade, Baron Davis was an afterthought, now, it seems as if he may help this team find some kind of identity for the rest of this season.
You would have had to have held a gun to my head to get me to believe that two weeks ago, but now, after seeing him play in two games (yep, I'm jumping to conclusions after a whole two games), he looks like he is enjoying himself.
I can't fully expect this to continue, but for now it looks as if Davis has his act together enough to actually help this team get back to respectability in the short term.
Davis has always played better when he is on good teams, and playing with dynamic players, which doesn't exactly describe the Cleveland Cavaliers.
However, one thing that the Cavs do have that good teams, or those with dynamic players have, is an energetic crowd that acts as something of a sixth man for the team.
Cleveland is still third in attendance, despite its league-worst 12 wins, and attendance looks to stay that high at least through the rest of this season.
So, with Baron Davis looking like he has come to Cleveland ready to play real basketball, and not slip back into his weight-gaining, shame-spiral that he is prone to when he is on a bad team, is Cleveland finally ready to shake off the effects of the first two-thirds of the season?
Let's take a look at the pros and cons to the argument, shall we?
Con: Cleveland Had a Similar Run at the Beginning of the Season
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Think back with me, will you?
The Cleveland Cavaliers started the 2010-2011 campaign winning, much to the surprise of the nation, over the Boston Celtics, and would run to a 7-9 record before the wheels fell off.
We all know the story from there. They lost 10 games in a row, beat the Knicks and then reeled off another 26 losses.
The Cavaliers looked like one of the worst teams in the history of the game, and suddenly, they don't even look like the worst team in the NBA anymore, but can it last.
Cleveland started the season so quickly because it was running on doubt from the media and adrenaline.
The Cavs beat Boston in their first game of the season and were pumped. They went from there and showed more energy than any team they played against.
The Cavs tried to outrun their opponent in every game they played, and eventually coaches figured them out, and they started losing...a lot.
So who is to say that this isn't just a microcosm of the beginning of the season for the Cavs, and who is to say that they won't revert right back to losing in large chunks a week from now?
Pro: He Gives the Team a Veteran Pure Point Guard
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There is one aspect of Baron Davis that is constantly overlooked due to his insanely up-and-down career: Davis is a relatively good point guard in the sense that he can run an offense.
He always seems to be considered a shooting point guard because of his gaudy offensive numbers, namely in 2004 when he shot 582 three-pointers, while making only 187 of them (that's only 32 percent in case you were wondering).
He did this while only playing in 67 games. If he would have played all 82 games, at that pace he would have shot 713 threes, which would have easily been a record.
That tag stuck with him and people overlooked the fact that he was in the top 10 in assists six times in the past decade, and has the fourth-most assists of all active players.
This gives a young Cleveland team (the Cavs have five rookies despite not having a pick in last year's draft) a nucleus, something it lost when LeBron James left for Miami.
I'm not trying to say Davis is a replacement for LeBron, but he does a lot of the things that Mo Williams, Boobie Gibson and Ramon Sessions couldn't do for the team.
He may be a ball-hogging son-of-a-gun, but the man can run an offense, it just gets overshadowed by his tendency to call his own number too often when he doesn't care.
So, I guess the only thing that the Cavs need to do is make sure that Baron Davis keeps caring, which brings me to my next slide.
Con: They Have to Make Sure That Baron Davis Cares
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If there is one thing that Baron Davis has been vilified for in his career, it is his tendency to fade into the background of his team, and quit caring.
His 582 three-pointers attempted this season is the ultimate display of not caring.
The Hornets never had a season at or below .500 with Davis at the helm until 2003-04, when they battled injuries and finished .500, and Davis stopped caring on offense.
The next year the Hornets traded him to the Golden State Warriors, and he went on to try to prove to the Hornets that they shouldn't have traded him.
Golden State then went into a funk the next year and Davis receded, followed by a sharp upswing in production in the next two years, when the Warriors were drawing huge, excited crowds and upsetting the Dallas Mavericks in the first round of the playoffs.
After that, Davis didn't seem to care about a basketball game again until this season, in which he got to play in front of excited crowds and with an exciting player.
To make Baron Davis care, the fans have to care, and he needs a couple of guys to lob alley-oops to.
Pro: Cleveland May Be Able To Make Baron Davis Care Just Long Enough
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This may be one of the iffiest things on this list, but it is possible that Cleveland can make Baron Davis care about basketball long enough to get more out of their investment than they ever could have imagined.
As of right now, Cleveland is still selling out games and rocking The Q, which means, for home games at least, Davis should have something to play for.
It seems that whenever an arena that Davis plays in is full of energy, he puts forth at least a decent performance.
In his first two games with the Cavs—one against the Knicks at Madison Square Garden, and one against the Hornets in The Q—both were packed.
The arena was rocking on both nights, and on both nights, Davis put up good numbers, especially for his first two games with a new team.
On top of that, he showed off some good timing with a few young players.
In the first play of his Cleveland Cavaliers career, Davis lobbed an alley-oop to JJ Hickson. It looked as if he forgot that he was on the Cavs and thought Hickson was Blake Griffin.
In the game against the Hornets, he lobbed a pass just out of the reach of the young, yet uber-athletic Christian Eyenga. If they can get their timing down, some exciting things could happen between the two of them.
So, if the Cavs keep packing in fans when they are at home, and Hickson and "Sky-enga" prove to be good alley-oop partners for Davis, they could turn him into a lucrative trade piece for next year's trading deadline.
Con: He Has Clashed with Byron Scott in the Past
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One of the biggest worries for Cleveland fans with Baron Davis coming to Cleveland was his past relationship with head coach Byron Scott.
When Davis was playing for New Orleans under Scott, things between the two were rocky to say the least.
Scott has a reputation around the league as being a bit of a control freak, and when things don't run the way that he would like them to, he isn't happy and lets his players know that.
Now, Davis has a reputation around the league as being a guy who goes against the grain, and wants to do his own thing as often as possible.
Funny that two completely opposite people would clash, right?
It's hard to believe that these two will coexist together in Cleveland for the duration and not have their troubles. They just need to keep their troubles to a minimum, or there could be even more trouble on the horizon for this team.
Pro: He Doesnt Have To Care About Defense
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In the beginning of his career, Davis was quite the formidable defender, even leading the league in steals per game in 2004.
However, he has been declining quite steadily defensively as he gets older and slower.
He doesn't want to sprint down to the other end of the floor on every possession, he doesn't want to guard his man as hard as he can and he doesn't want to crash the boards hard anymore.
It's just something that is obvious when you watch the guy play.
However, with Cleveland owning the worst defense in the league, nobody is expecting him to come in and be the stout defender he once was. In fact, it has been quite the opposite.
Cleveland fans have been hoping that he could effectively run the offense, and if he does anything more than that, it is just icing on the cake.
Con: He Is Baron Davis
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As much as I want to believe that this guy can continue to give a damn about games for the rest of the season, and then come back next season and do the same thing, it just seems unlikely to happen.
This is a man whose career is defined by extreme emotional swings, rapid weight gain and a flat-out indifference to the game at times.
He had the talent to be one of the best point guards in the league at one point, but he just didn't care enough to make it happen.
With a lockout looming, it seems even less likely that he will end up doing much of anything productive next season.
If there does end up being a lockout next season in the NBA, and all signs currently point to that happening, there is no doubt in my mind that Davis will spend that extra free time at his favorite restaurants, and come back to the team when the league gets back together with at least 10 extra pounds on his frame.
It doesn't seem to be a matter of if, but rather a matter of when.
The team may show signs of life right now, but it may not last for long, so enjoy it as much as it can be enjoyed right now.
Sure, I can hope that he continues to care, that he likes Cleveland and the love that the city showers on him and that he tries hard to win meaningless games. But with his track record, is that at all likely?
Probably not, but until he shows up to the team 25 pounds overweight and challenges Eddy Curry for the NBA's hot dog eating championship at their next company picnic (which is something I would pay to watch, by the way) I'm going to continue to enjoy his random flashes of brilliance.
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